All Unit Test projects in TeamCity does not compile failing to reference Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework

Question

All our unit test projects (About 8 of them) just stopped compiling and I can't find any good reason for it.

"error CS0234: The type or namespace name 'VisualStudio' does not exist in the namespace 'Microsoft' (are you missing an assembly reference?)"

From the TeamCity (v2017.2.2) build log the projects are missing the Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework DLL with error codes CS0234 and CS0246. I can't see any code changes that could have caused it there was however a server restart that might have kicked in some pending changes.

What has been checked

• Checked both with a Visual Studio (SLN) and MSBuild runner step, both gave the same results (MSBuild was previously working fine while the Visual Studio was failing on the C# 6/7 code, the reason why we changed to a newer MSBuild version)
• These Test projects build fine on the same build server if the solution is opened in Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise (Installed on Build server)

Project Reference configuration

<Choose>
    <When Condition="('$(VisualStudioVersion)' == '10.0' or '$(VisualStudioVersion)' == '') and '$(TargetFrameworkVersion)' == 'v3.5'">
      <ItemGroup>
        <Reference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework, Version=10.1.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a, processorArchitecture=MSIL" />
      </ItemGroup>
    </When>
    <Otherwise>
      <ItemGroup>
        <Reference Include="Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.UnitTestFramework" />
      </ItemGroup>
    </Otherwise>
  </Choose>

MSBuild Version

We use the MSbuild v15.6.82.30579 in Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin not the default one in C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319 (Added as such to environmental variables)

Any recommendations will be appreciated. I really don't want to start adding DLL's to the GAC if it can be helped.

Answer 1

If you are using Build Tools 2017 on your server, and you don't have Visual Studio 2017 installed, then you have to switch to MS Test v2:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devops/2017/09/01/upgrade-to-mstest-v2/ https://www.nuget.org/packages/MSTest.TestAdapter https://www.nuget.org/packages/MSTest.TestFramework

Old MS Test framework is not supported with Build Tools.

Then in TeamCity in Build Step you have to change your runner type to Visual Studio Tests, Test engine type from MSTest to VSTest, and Test engine Version to VSTest 2017

Answer 2

Install "VC++ 2017 version 15.7 v14.14 toolset" component under individual components, seems that the default toolset does not have the unit test binaries.

References:

Unit test files not installed by Visual Studio Build Tools 2017

Answer 3

Okay so the issue seemed to be broader than just Unit Tests. In short even though MSbuild and Visual Studio build (from the build server) running MSBuild step from Visual Studio does not utilize the same 'shared' folders.

I had to make use of a couple of different strategies to sort out version and missing common DLL's:

• Update the Visual Studio Build Tools to the latest version i.e. get the latest version of MSBuild to the build server and ensure it is added to the OS environmental PATH (Set the default MSBuild to be the new one). In my case it was changing it from 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319' to 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin'
• Add the missing/newer DLL to the MSBuild BIN folder and mark it as read-only so that it is not overridden again
• As last resort you add the DLL to the GAC using the gacutil.exe. This is not recommended because it obfuscates the relationship (Rather try to find where it is used with Fusion logging and add it there).