TFS checkin error - could not find file

Question

This will happen when TFS has some changes staged that no longer exist on the file system. For instance, if you add some files in Visual Studio (which adds them to the changes list), delete them directly from the file system, then attempt to check in the changes, it will complain that it could not find the file(s).

To remove these changes from the list, you can open Source Control Explorer (View > Other Windows > Source Control Explorer) and either Delete the nonexistent files or right-click on the offending files and Undo Pending Changes.

You can also undo these specific changes from the Pending Changes panel in Team Explorer.

Create an empty file to replace the missing file and complete your check-in. After you have checked in the file correctly delete the file that is not needed.

Go to the project that has file 'blah blah blah', you should see the file has an error mark indicating it does not exist. Right click the file > Delete. That should take care of the problem.

I had a similar problem. I had forgotten I was tinkering with adding publish profiles for publish. TFS felt it needed to check that in, even though the output wasn't there. I simply right clicked on the App.Publish folder in Team Explorer inside of visual studio and chose to exclude. Checked everything back in with no problem.