Visual Studio - TFS - Editing Build Definition Error - 259 Characters

Question

I am trying to edit an existing build definition. I get the following error whenever I click on Process.

Team Foundation Error

TF400889: The following path contains more than allowed 259 characters. Specify a shorter path.

Answer 1

While you may not be able to change the long-named file path itself, there is a solution for you!

If you're like me, you probably created your Build Controller then started learning about TFS Builds. So you filled in the blanks something like this:

By default that specifies a path for the build to access any custom assemblies your custom build process requires. If you don't have custom assemblies, you don't need this value.

To get back to that dialog box, open Team Foundation Administration Console on your Build Server, and click Properties on the build controller. Simply remove the path and your problem will go away (or if you actually do have custom assemblies, point directly to that folder).

Answer 2

AFAIK you are pretty much stuffed. Common workarounds are to shorten the build path on the server, or conversely, encourage developers to use a local working directory path which is always at least as long as the build server's working directory.

Answer 3

My issue with the accepted answer is that it mentions a fix for the build server. The original question isn't about having an issue on the build server. In the screenshot you can see it is a local AppData/Temp path. He is attempting to modify a build definition from Visual Studio.

I ran into the same issue and found a work around. The path that was erroring for me was not even in the Source Settings workspace. After playing for a bit, I found that if you change something in the Source Settings tab and go back to the Process tab, it works. For example, on the Source Settings tab click the Status column of the first blank column and change it to Cloaked, then click off that row, you will notice nothing changed. But now you can go back to the Process tab and it will come up fine.

The tiny 'change' must initialize something about the Build Definition the source it is pulling. I am using Visual Studio 2013 and 2015.