"File Not Found" in MSBuild Community Tasks -- Which File?

Question

I'm trying to use the VssGet task of the MSBuild Community Tasks, and the error message "File or project not found" is beating me with a stick. I can't figure out what in particular the error message is referring to. Here's the task:

<LocalFilePath Include="C:\Documents and Settings\michaelc\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\Astronom\Astronom.sln" />

<VssGet DatabasePath="\\ofmapoly003\Individual\michaelc\VSS\Astronom_VSS\srcsafe.ini" 
     Path="$/Astronom_VSS" 
        LocalPath="@(LocalFilePath)" 
        UserName="build" Password="build" 
     Recursive="True" />

If I write a Streamreader to read to either the database path or the local path, it succeeds fine. So the path to everything appears to be accessible. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Two thoughts. One, sometimes a type load exception manifests as a FNF - let's hope that's not it. But if the code is actually being honest, you can track the problem using Procmon or Filemon. Start one of those utilities and then run your task again. You should be able to track down a record of a file that couldn't be located.

Answer 2

@famoushamsandwich that's a great response -- I had not previously heard of procmon or filemon. Tried procmon on the problem, but even after sifting through the relevant output (my gosh the machine does a lot more stuff behind the screen than I was aware of) I couldn't find where a file I'm referencing wasn't being found.

Answer 3

Procmon and Filemon are good suggestions - just make sure you filter the results to only show errors. Otherwise the success messages will bury the problem entries. Also, you can filter out processes that are not at fault (either through the filter dialog or by right-clicking the entry and choosing "Exclude Process".)

A couple other thoughts:

• In the LocalFilePath, you are specifying a single file as opposed to a folder. The task, on the other hand, specifies to get files recursively. Perhaps you need to remove "\Astronom.sln" from the LocalFilePath?
• Is the build task being run under your account or another? It's possible you have a permissions issue
• Do you already have a copy of the code pulled down in the same location? Perhaps there is a failure to overwrite an existing file/folder?