teamcity building project Failed to start MSBuild.exe. Illegal characters in path

Question

I am trying to build a project within teamcity. It will do the checkout of TFS and the files are locally on the build server. If I manually run the build command on the server it works:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\msbuild.exe C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\3446a5bd436eea87\Dev\Dev\project\myproj\myproj.csproj /t:build

Within Teamcity I have a Build step of MSBuild:

the build fie path is: Dev\Dev\project\myproj\myproj.csproj" working directory left blank mbuild version: microsoft .net framework 4.0 msbuild toolsversion: 4.0 run platform: X86 targets: I have tried build "build" and left blank command line params left blank

if I create a command line build task and run the above command line it works. I am not sure what differences there are between the command line and msbuild task within teammcity.

EDIT

I have tried a few variations on the working directory:

The output path in project is set to ..\Build\Tools\myproj\

So I have set the working directory in teamcity to: Dev\Dev\project\Build\Tools\myproj\

This didn't help.

Here is the exact output from teamcity:

Starting: C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\plugins\dotnetPlugin\bin\JetBrains.BuildServer.MsBuildBootstrap.exe /workdir:C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\3446a5bd436eea87\Dev\Dev\project\Build\Tools\myproj /msbuildPath:C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe
in directory: C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\work\3446a5bd436eea87\Dev\Dev\project\Build\Tools\myproj


Failed to start MSBuild.exe. Illegal characters in path.
System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
   at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path)
   at System.IO.Path.IsPathRooted(String path)
   at JetBrains.TeamCity.Utils.FileUtil.MakeFullPath(String path, String workDir) in         c:\BuildAgent\work\c2314fd21f15dc97\src\Utils\src\FileUtil.cs:line 48
   at JetBrains.BuildServer.MSBuildBootstrap.RunArgs.get_ProjectFile() in     c:\BuildAgent\work\c2314fd21f15dc97\src\MSBuildBootstrap\src\RunArgs.cs:line 156
   at     JetBrains.BuildServer.MSBuildBootstrap.Impl.MSBuildBootstrapFactory.Create(IClientRunArgs     args) in     c:\BuildAgent\work\c2314fd21f15dc97\src\MSBuildBootstrap.Core\src\Impl\MSBuildBootstrapFact    ory.cs:line 29
   at JetBrains.BuildServer.MSBuildBootstrap.Program.Run(String[] _args) in     c:\BuildAgent\work\c2314fd21f15dc97\src\MSBuildBootstrap\src\Program.cs:line 67

Answer 1

Try editing the build configuration and remove the quotes from the Build file path option.

If you have:

"Dev\Dev\project\myproj\myproj.csproj"

Just let:

Dev\Dev\project\myproj\myproj.csproj

I hope this help.

Answer 2

In TeamCity, when you are using parameters for your path, or a portion of the path, it is easy to paste in a folder and not notice that it has a New Line or Carriage Return on the end (as I found from painful experience). It could show up in TeamCity as the value for a parameter:

\Folder1\NewlyPastedInFolder \ExistingFolder\BuildScripts

What looks like a word-wrapped value is actually a parameter with a carriage return in the middle. Check it by editing it, and see if you can delete the character to make it into a single-line value.