TFS Problems communicating between Build Controller and Build Agent on same machine

2
votes

We're working on setting up a TFS server for our work, and I'm in charge of getting the build working. I have had no experience with TFS before, but setting the build controller and agents up using the wizards was easy enough. We have the TFS server on one machine, and a build controller and build agent on another machine registered to the TFS server.

When I start a build from my developer machine, the build reports as having started and the status of the controller changes to something like "running build vstfs://Build/Build/16". However, the status of the Agent never changes from "Ready" and the build hangs indefinitely. If I stop the build from my developer machine, it reports that the "build was forcefully stopped by the server because the build machine did not respond to a stop request", and the build controller still has the status of "running build". I need to restart the build controller in order to reset the status.

I've checked that port 9191 is unblocked, and I can telnet into the port from my developer machine. The server also seems to be able to communicate with the build machine, as the controller is receiving build requests, but I have no idea what to do from here. Any TFS experts have any idea what might be happening?

Thanks, Zach

1
visual-studio-2013
Have you checked the account the service is running as is setup correctly? – DaveShaw
@DaveShaw How so? The TFS server is aware of the account and the account is on the domain. What other modifications are necessary? I can check them if you have any ideas. – Zach H
I can't recall without grabbing my copy of "Professional TFS" from Wrox, but I'm sure the account the service runs as needs certain permissions to log into TFS. Also, is there anything in the event logs on the box or in TFS's "OI" page ? – DaveShaw
@daveShaw The build machine's event logs just have a few "service started" and "service stopped" logs from when I had to restart it. The OI page shows an Acknowledge from the build server, a few QueryQueuedBuilds from my developer machine, and a QueryBuildAgentsByUri event from the build machine. Thats the last event OI recorded before the service hanged. – Zach H

1 Answers

3
votes

Found the problem.

Under the build service properties, We had the value "Listen for build agent communication on:" set to [BUILDAGENT.companydomain.com:9191/Build/v5.0/Services. We needed the value to be just [BUILDAGENT:9191/Build/v5.0/Services]