Error CS0234 when building solution using TFS 2017 BuildAgent

Question

I ran into the following probem, when trying to build using a TFS build definition.

When executing a Build the agent logs following errors:

Error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'VisualStudio' does not exist in the namespace 'Microsoft' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

Error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'TestInitializeAttribute' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'TestCleanupAttribute' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'TestCleanup' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

Error CS0246: The type or namespace name 'TestMethodAttribute' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)

So i understand the message that way, that the buildAgent is unable to find the following .dll

Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting;

I have installed Visual Studio 2017 RC and Visual Studio 2017 Build Tools on the server, that runs TFS and the Buildagents.

I have also installed .net 4.6.1 on that mashine.

This accepted answer is not a solution for me.

There must be some kind of solution, that does not include to copy that dll into the git trunk and reference it from there.

Update

I am able to locally build the Solution using Visual Studio 2017 RC on that mashine. But the build agent still throws the same errors.

Answer 1

I finaly figured out how to solve this issue.

I added the following nuget package as reference to my project:

https://www.nuget.org/packages/MSTest.TestFramework/

That is the mstestv2 Framework.

Afterwards i had to remove the old reference to the mstestv1 framework.

The build errors are gone now.

Update:

If you want to have your tests discoverable add MSTest TestAdapter to your project.

Thanks to Maciej for that Information.

Answer 2

I changed the target framework from 4.7 to 4.6.1 in VS 2017, and it was fixed

Answer 3

Make sure you have not checked in the /packages directory that contains the NuGet packages & DLLs. I accidentally checked this directory into source control and it prevented the NuGet restore task from correctly downloading the needed DLLs

The key message was a warning earlier in the build log:

Warning MSB3245: Could not resolve this reference. Could not locate the assembly "Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestPlatform.TestFramework, Version=14.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL". Check to make sure the assembly exists on disk. If this reference is required by your code, you may get compilation errors.