MSBuild PreBuild event failing to copy file

[Phil Carter]

We have a few projects in our VS 2019 Solution that take their config files from other projects and then perform various config transforms on them.

In the PreBuild event I have the following,

xcopy "$(SolutionDir)$(TargetName)\web.config" "$(ProjectDir)" /Y /F

When Bamboo runs the MSBuild command it fails with,

error MSB3073: The command "xcopy "..\Project1\web.config" "D:\bamboo\build-dir\50954242\WS-PROD2-COMPILERELEASE\SolutionFolder\Project2\" /Y /F" exited with code 4. 

If I copy the command from the error message and execute it at a command prompt it completes successfully.

Hoping someone has some suggestions on resolving this issue.

Cheers

Phil

[Phil Carter · Accepted solution]

Ok, after beating my head around sideways with this, I couldn't getting anything to work from within Bamboo. All the different permutations of "copy" commands worked when executed from the command prompt. They even worked when I ran MSBuild from the command prompt.

Ended up re-wiring this as a BeforeBuild Target in the project file.

<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<ItemGroup>
<ConfigToBeCopied Include="$(SolutionDir)$(TargetName)\web.config" />
</ItemGroup>
<Copy SourceFiles="@(ConfigToBeCopied)" DestinationFolder="$(ProjectDir)" />
</Target>

With that setup and the PreBuild event removed everything built successfully within Bamboo.

Cheers

Phil

[Jimmy Seddon]

Hey Phil,

I'm sorry I wasn't able to help you solve what you were trying to do, but I'm glad you found another way to get the results you were looking for.

-Jimmy

[Jimmy Seddon]

Hi @Phil Carter,

Looking up what exit code 4 is, I think it's complaining about the path you are passing to the command.

When a Bamboo agent runs a build plan it puts everything into a working directory and runs command from the root of the working directory, unless you specify a sub-directory in the GUI build plan task editor.

I would make sure that that path you are trying to execute the command from is the same as the directory structure from within the agent working directory.

I hope that helps!

-Jimmy

[Phil Carter]

Thanks for the reply Jimmy

When I run the copy from the command prompt, I'm running it from the Bamboo build directory and it works without any issues.

[Jimmy Seddon]

That's a really weird one.  Looking at some of the solutions posted here:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5626557/what-is-going-wrong-when-visual-studio-tells-me-xcopy-exited-with-code-4

One of the solutions is talking about the dependency order where something is trying to write to the directory at the same time that you are trying to copy the files that could cause this type of issue.

I'm pulling at strings here but it might be something to check out?

I hope that helps!

-Jimmy