Nuget Package Downloads But Isn't Installed On TFS Build

Question

Title pretty much says it all. I have a project which uses some nuget packages. All are downloaded but two of them (HTMLAgilityPack and Newtonsoft) are never installed i.e. the .nupkg file is not extracted, thus, the required .dlls cannot be found and the build fails. Here's the part of the build log file showing when the packages are restored on the build server:

Target "RestorePackages: (TargetId:587)" in file "##\nuget.targets" from project "##.csproj" (target "ResolveReferences" depends on it):

Task "Exec" skipped, due to false condition;

Task "Exec" (TaskId:360) Task Parameter:Command="##\nuget.exe" install "##\packages.config" -source "https://nuget.org/api/v2/" -RequireConsent -solutionDir "##\Sources\" (TaskId:360) Task Parameter:LogStandardErrorAsError=True (TaskId:360) "##\nuget.exe" install "##\packages.config" -source "https://nuget.org/api/v2/" -RequireConsent -solutionDir "##\Sources\ " (TaskId:360)
Successfully installed '###.Utilities.Excel 1.0.0.0'. (TaskId:360)   
Successfully installed '###.Utilities.FileIO 1.0.0.1'. (TaskId:360)   
Successfully installed '###.Utilities.String 1.0.0.0'. (TaskId:360)   
All packages listed in packages.config are already installed. 
(TaskId:360) Done executing task "Exec". (TaskId:360) Done building target "RestorePackages" in project "##.csproj".: (TargetId:587)

As you can see, HTMLAgilityPack and Newtonsoft are not installed as part of the RestorePackages task. Why would TFS build download but not install these packages?

If you are using tfs 2015 nuget packages are not supported. You can them to work but its tricky. — Claudius
turns out the nuget.exe was just outdated. The project was started by someone else 2 years ago, I added a relatively new nuget package and the old nuget.exe wasn't compatible with it — sam.gregory91

granadaCoder granadaCoder · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-11T16:26:16

As you wrote, an old nuget.exe will do this.

What I do is take the "..nuget\nuget.exe" out of the equation.

I put nuget.exe on the build server.

I store them like this:

C:\MyProgFiles\NuGet\2.8.6\nuget.exe
C:\MyProgFiles\NuGet\3.3.0\nuget.exe

You might ask why I keep the olders. There are occasionally issues with the newest build.

Then on my builds, I setup the build server, I essentially run this:

"C:\MyProgFiles\NuGet\3.3.0\nuget.exe" restore c:\builds\1\SomeDirectory\MySolution.sln -NoCache

Obviously, you'll use macros instead of hard coded paths.

This will (obviously) restore the packages.

I use "NoCache" because occasionally our private nuget cache has things removed......which are cached on the build server. The nocache arg will find this issue sooner than later.

Nuget Package Downloads But Isn't Installed On TFS Build

2 Answers