TFS workspace display conflict

Question

They asked a lot, and for two days I tried to decide, without success. I am running TFS 2012 Express on Win7. I installed the VS Express version on this machine. I can check in order. I am trying to create a continuous integration assembly.

But when I force build on the build server, I get the following error:

Unable to create workspace "2_1_Server" due to display conflict. You may need to manually delete the old workspace. You can get a list of workspaces on the computer with the command "tf workspaces" /Computer :.% COMPUTERNAME%

Details: the path C: \ Builds \ Finance is already displayed in the workspace 1_1_Server. (type MappingConflictException)

(Not sure where he gets "C: \ Builds \ Finance" from ....)

Then I try what it says on my dev machine and asks me for my credentials on the build server. I introduce them and he tells me:

It seems beautiful, no?

On the server, I check the working folder of the build agent:

d: \ Builds \ $ (BuildAgentId) \ $ (BuildDefinitionPath)

I am not sure where the conflict is.

Interestingly, if I load another team project on the same server, it builds. I just created an assembly definition for this project, and it seemed to be building successfully. I think this has something to do with build definitions as these projects were migrated from another TFS server .....

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Install the free Team Foundation Sidekicks tool and use it to remove any workspaces for your build server using Tools> Workspace Sidekick (i.e. with your build server name in the workspace search results. Computer column). (Don't worry: TFS builds recreate them):

Then go and delete everything on d:\builds on the build server.

Then check the workspace display by editing each def assembly on the Source Options tab and make sure they use $(SourceDir) as part of the path for each display displayed.

If assemblies have hard path codes, instead of using the $(SourceDir) token as the root, it can explain the behavior you see.