Troubleshooting Team Foundation Drop Folder Problems

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The following section describes common troubleshooting scenarios you may experience with Team Foundation Build drop folders.

Build Drop Location Problems

The drop location is the location where the built binaries, build log files and the test results log files are published during the build process. The build service account, under which the build process runs, must have the most appropriate permissions on this drop location. If you want to publish test results, the Team Foundation Service Account under which the Web services are running (one of which is used for publishing test results) must have the same permissions to the drop location.

You may see one of the following errors if there is a problem with the drop location permissions:

  • On selecting to build from Team Explorer, you receive this error: “Failed to connect to drop location \\build\drops. Ensure it is a valid share”.

Or

  1. The build starts but fails.

  2. The "Initializing build" step is shown as failed.

  3. No log file is available.

  4. Event viewer displays the error “ Access to path \\build\drops\buildtype_123ABC is denied”

Solution

  • Make sure that the drop location, for example \\build\drops\buildtype_123ABC, is a valid and shared folder.

  • Make sure that the build service account has the Full Control permission to the drop location shared folder.

  • If you are also running tests and the Team Foundation service and the build service accounts are different, make sure that the Team Foundation Service account also has the Full Control permission to the drop location shared folder.

See Also

Other Resources

Administering Team Foundation Build
Troubleshooting Team Foundation Build
Managing Builds with Team Foundation Build