##[error]Error: NO JSON file matched with specific pattern: **/appsettings.json

Question

I'm trying to deploy an Azure App Service using Azure Devops.

I'm using the Task Azure App Service deploy version 4.*

I started noticing the following error in the log recently with the deployment failing (saw it first on 24th September)

Applying JSON variable substitution for **/appsettings.json
##[error]Error: NO JSON file matched with specific pattern: **/appsettings.json.

In the pipeline I use the task Extract files to extract *.zip, then use the result to search for **/appsettings.json.

The same task was running fine till a few days ago.
I tried redeploying an old release which was successful earlier, but it failed now with the same above error.

I double checked, there was no changes done in the pipeline recently for this to break.

How can I fix this.

Answer 1

Turns out my issue was not with the task Azure App Service deploy, but with the task Extract Files.

A rough look on my pipeline is as below:

Before the fix

1. Extract files
   
2. Deploy Azure App Service

The JSON variable substitution failed because the Extract files task was not able to find *.zip files in the root folder and hence extracted nothing. So, there was no appsettings.json file in the folder structure at all.

The Fix

• Update the Extract files task search pattern as **/*.zip

Now my pipeline looks like below.

1. Extract files
   
2. Deploy Azure App Service

It now works fine for me.