TFS Build keep throwing 'Unable to perform the get operation because the file already exists locally' error

Question

I am currently working on an ASP.NET based web application which is version controlled via TFS. A TFS Build server is configured so it is running the build process on every checkin. My problem is that whenever I modify the Web.Config file and check in the modifications, the build process keeps throwing an error when getting the source which says 'Unable to perform the get operation because the file already exists locally'. I tried to remove the Web.Config from TFS and checked in the modifications, but the error was still there, saying 'Unable to perform the delete operation because the file already exists locally'. But when I manually delete the file from the build server's filesystem, the problem is gone. What do you think the problem is? I have not found anything relevant to this on google, so I would be really happy if you could help me. Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

In TFS 2015, VSTS, I solved the issue by selecting true from the dropdown shown below:

Don't forget to set it back to false after the build succeeds because if you leave it on, it will always do a clean and thus the build will take longer.

Answer 2

In your build definition, do you have Clean Workspace option set to All?

If that doesn't help, can you set the Logging Verbosity to Diagnostic and see if there is anymore detail about the issue.