TFS 2012 Build “Access to Path Denied”

Question

I’m using TFS 2012 Build and running into an error

Access to the path is denied

The solution being built contains about 15 proje

Answer 1

As Buck Hodges and Nimblejoe have rightly said, this is mostly due to TFS running multiple MSBuild processes by default to build your projects.

You can override it in the build definition in Process -> 3. Advanced -> MSBuild Arguments by adding the MSBuild argument /p:BuildInParallel=false

Answer 2

I also had same problem. I got error messages that related to cannot copy since access to path denied. In my case all my dll's and xml files and so on are place at D:\TFS\Example\Bin\Debug folder.

I right clicked on Bin folder and clicked Properties and saw that Read-only check box is checked under Attributes.

I un-checked Read only check box and cliked Apply and clicked OK on the new popup that is shown.

I went back to Visual Studio and build my solution which was giving me error messages.

Voilaa.. This time it build successfully without errors.

I donot know whether this is perfect but I did this to solve my issue.

Answer 3

Here's a variation of this problem which I had to deal with:

I couldn't figure out why my build kept failing on an "Access to the path is denied" error, even though I had added things like /p:BuildInParallel=false and /p:OverwriteReadOnlyFiles=true to the MSBuild Arguments of my XAML build. The cause turned out to be a "Post-build event command line" in my Project's properties.

After changing

%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe[SNIP] 
/P:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName);[SNIP] 
;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false

to

%WinDir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe[SNIP] 
/P:Configuration=$(ConfigurationName);[SNIP]
;AutoParameterizationWebConfigConnectionStrings=false;OverwriteReadOnlyFiles=true

the error went away.

Answer 4

I had this issue, with TFS 2015. It turned out to be because the build Agent was running under the default (NETWORK SERVICE) credentials, which didn't have write permissions on the target folder. Once I'd removed the Agent and reinstalled it with credentials it worked. It did have me trawling through the logs for a while, checking and unchecking the multi-proc box and even restarting the build server in my hunt. Check the obvious stuff first...

Answer 5

I found the same problem which occurred after the build tried to overwrite files in the "Working Directory" it had created in a previous attempt to build. (set in the Agent)

I resolved this by manually deleting the output folder it created (in my case [Working Directory]\Binaries) before attempting the build.

This can be done automatically by changing the Build Definition. Under Process---2.Basic---Clean Workspace set this to the Outputs option

Answer 6

To work around this problem I had to remove the "ReadOnly" flag on the source directory

Then in the build definition set Clean Workspace

to None