Post Build exited with code 1

Question

I have a project with a post build event   copy   ProjectDir DbVerse Lunaverse DbVerse   exe    TargetDir    It works fine every time on my machine   I have a new developer who always gets the  exited with code 1  error   I had her run the same command in a DOS prompt  and it worked fine   What could be causing this   Is there any way to get to the real error   We are both using Visual Studio 2008

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She had a space in one of the folder names in her path  and no quotes around it

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So many solutions     In my case  I had to save the bat file with non-unicode  Western  Windows  encoding  By default when I added the file to visual studio  and probably I should have done it outside of the VS   it added with UTF-8 encoding

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So many solutions     In my case  I had to save the bat file with non-unicode  Western  Windows  encoding  By default when I added the file to visual studio  and probably I should have done it outside of the VS   it added with UTF-8 encoding

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In my case I had to cd  change directory  before calling the bat file  because inside the bat file was a copy operation that specified relative paths      Copy file cd    ProjectDir files build scripts   call  copy bat

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Get process monitor from SysInternals  set it up to watch for the Lunaverse DbVerse  on the Path field  look at the operation result   It should be obvious from there what went wrong

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I had this same issue and it turned out that it was because I had renamed the project  I went into the project properties and changed the Assembly Name and Root Namespace to the project name and it worked great after that

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I had a similar issue but specifically in a Jenkins build environment   To fix the issue  I switched from using a copy command in the post build event to using a copy target   I changed this       lt PropertyGroup gt         lt PostBuildEvent gt copy   ProjectDir bin BLAH Common xml   ProjectDir App Data BLAH Common xml lt  PostBuildEvent gt      lt  PropertyGroup gt    to this      lt Target Name  AfterBuild  gt       lt Copy SourceFiles    ProjectDir bin BLAH Common xml  DestinationFolder    ProjectDir App Data     gt     lt  Target gt    and it works fine now   The specific error I was getting was    PostBuildEvent target  - gt     C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319 Microsoft Common targets 4291 5   error MSB3073  The command  copy  lt http   1 2 3 4 job BLAHv2 ws Api bin BLAH Common xml gt   lt http   1 2 3 4 job BLAHv2 ws Api App Data BLAH Common xml  gt  exited with code 1    lt http   1 2 3 4 job BLAHv2 ws Api Api csproj  gt

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I just received the same error   I had a   in the destination path that needed to be escaped  c  projects  NotAnEnvironmentVariable    needed to be  c  projects   NotAnEnvironmentVariable

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I was able to fix my Code 1 by running Visual Studio as Admin  Apparently it didn t have access to execute the shell commands without Admin

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For those  who use  copy  command in Build Events  Pre-build event command line or and Post-build event command line  from Project -  Properties  you  copy  command parameters should look like here  copy  source of files   destination for files   Remember to use quotation marks  to avoid problems with spaces in strings of address

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Get process monitor from SysInternals  set it up to watch for the Lunaverse DbVerse  on the Path field  look at the operation result   It should be obvious from there what went wrong

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Ok  this is a problem with many solutions  so I just post mine to give people more hints  My situation is to double check the folders in your path and make sure all of them exist in your machine  For example      SolutionDir  partBin Bin   ProjectName  pdb   but  Bin  is not in partBin folder

User · Answer

For those  who use  copy  command in Build Events  Pre-build event command line or and Post-build event command line  from Project -  Properties  you  copy  command parameters should look like here  copy  source of files   destination for files   Remember to use quotation marks  to avoid problems with spaces in strings of address

User · Answer

I was able to fix my Code 1 by running Visual Studio as Admin  Apparently it didn t have access to execute the shell commands without Admin

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I have added this for future visitors since this is quite an active question   ROBOCOPY exits with  success codes  which are under 8  See  http   support microsoft com kb 954404  This means that    robocopy exit code 0   no files copied robocopy exit code 1   files copied When the result is 1  this becomes an error exit code in visual studio    So i solved this easily by adding this to the bottom of the batch file  exit 0   Suggest that handle ROBOCOPY errors in this fashion  rem each robocopy statement and then underneath have the error check  if  ERRORLEVEL  GEQ 8 goto failed  rem end of batch file GOTO success   failed rem do not pause as it will pause msbuild  exit 1   success exit 0       Confusion will set in when no files are copied   no error in VS  Then when there are changes  files do get copied  VS errors but everything the developer wanted was done   Additional Tip  Do not use a pause in the script as this would become an indefinite pause in the VS build  while developing the script  use something like timeout 10  You will notice this and comment it out rather than have a hanging build

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As a matter of good practice I suggest you replace the post build event with a MS Build File Copy task

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As a matter of good practice I suggest you replace the post build event with a MS Build File Copy task

User · Answer

I had this same issue and it turned out that it was because I had renamed the project  I went into the project properties and changed the Assembly Name and Root Namespace to the project name and it worked great after that

User · Answer

I have added this for future visitors since this is quite an active question   ROBOCOPY exits with  success codes  which are under 8  See  http   support microsoft com kb 954404  This means that    robocopy exit code 0   no files copied robocopy exit code 1   files copied When the result is 1  this becomes an error exit code in visual studio    So i solved this easily by adding this to the bottom of the batch file  exit 0   Suggest that handle ROBOCOPY errors in this fashion  rem each robocopy statement and then underneath have the error check  if  ERRORLEVEL  GEQ 8 goto failed  rem end of batch file GOTO success   failed rem do not pause as it will pause msbuild  exit 1   success exit 0       Confusion will set in when no files are copied   no error in VS  Then when there are changes  files do get copied  VS errors but everything the developer wanted was done   Additional Tip  Do not use a pause in the script as this would become an indefinite pause in the VS build  while developing the script  use something like timeout 10  You will notice this and comment it out rather than have a hanging build

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I had to run VS as Administrator to get my post-build copy to an OS protected     Common7 IDE PrivateAssemblies  to work

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Yet another answer      In my case I had a Visual Studio 2017 project targeting both  Net Standard 1 3 and  Net Framework 2 0  This was specified in the  csproj file like this    lt TargetFrameworks gt netstandard1 3 net20 lt  TargetFrameworks gt    I also had a post-build event command line like this   copy  E  Yacks YacksCore YacksCore bin net20 Merlinia YacksCore dll   E  Merlinia Trunk-Debug Shared Bin     In other words I was trying to copy the  Net Framework  dll produced by the build to an alternative location   This was failing with this error when I did a Rebuild   MSB3073 The command  copy  E  Yacks YacksCore YacksCore bin net20 Merlinia YacksCore dll   E  Merlinia Trunk-Debug Shared Bin    exited with code 1    After much frustration I finally determined that what was happening was that Rebuild deleted all of the output files  then did the build for  Net Standard 1 3  then tried to run the post-build event command line  which failed because the file to be copied wasn t built yet   So the solution was to change the order of building  i e   build for  Net Framework 2 0 first  then for  Net Standard 1 3    lt TargetFrameworks gt net20 netstandard1 3 lt  TargetFrameworks gt    This now works  with the minor glitch that the post-build event command line is being run twice  so the file is copied twice

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Yet another answer      In my case I had a Visual Studio 2017 project targeting both  Net Standard 1 3 and  Net Framework 2 0  This was specified in the  csproj file like this    lt TargetFrameworks gt netstandard1 3 net20 lt  TargetFrameworks gt    I also had a post-build event command line like this   copy  E  Yacks YacksCore YacksCore bin net20 Merlinia YacksCore dll   E  Merlinia Trunk-Debug Shared Bin     In other words I was trying to copy the  Net Framework  dll produced by the build to an alternative location   This was failing with this error when I did a Rebuild   MSB3073 The command  copy  E  Yacks YacksCore YacksCore bin net20 Merlinia YacksCore dll   E  Merlinia Trunk-Debug Shared Bin    exited with code 1    After much frustration I finally determined that what was happening was that Rebuild deleted all of the output files  then did the build for  Net Standard 1 3  then tried to run the post-build event command line  which failed because the file to be copied wasn t built yet   So the solution was to change the order of building  i e   build for  Net Framework 2 0 first  then for  Net Standard 1 3    lt TargetFrameworks gt net20 netstandard1 3 lt  TargetFrameworks gt    This now works  with the minor glitch that the post-build event command line is being run twice  so the file is copied twice

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My reason for the Code 1 was that the target folder was read only  Hope this helps someone  I had a post build event to do a copy from one directory to another and  the destination was read only  So I just went and unchecked the read-only attribute on the directory and all its subdirectories  Just make sure that its a directory that s safe to do so

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I had to run VS as Administrator to get my post-build copy to an OS protected     Common7 IDE PrivateAssemblies  to work

User · Answer

My reason for the Code 1 was that the target folder was read only  Hope this helps someone  I had a post build event to do a copy from one directory to another and  the destination was read only  So I just went and unchecked the read-only attribute on the directory and all its subdirectories  Just make sure that its a directory that s safe to do so

User · Answer

For those  who use  copy  command in Build Events  Pre-build event command line or and Post-build event command line  from Project -  Properties  target folder should exist

User · Answer

Ok  this is a problem with many solutions  so I just post mine to give people more hints  My situation is to double check the folders in your path and make sure all of them exist in your machine  For example      SolutionDir  partBin Bin   ProjectName  pdb   but  Bin  is not in partBin folder

User · Answer

I had a similar issue but specifically in a Jenkins build environment   To fix the issue  I switched from using a copy command in the post build event to using a copy target   I changed this       lt PropertyGroup gt         lt PostBuildEvent gt copy   ProjectDir bin BLAH Common xml   ProjectDir App Data BLAH Common xml lt  PostBuildEvent gt      lt  PropertyGroup gt    to this      lt Target Name  AfterBuild  gt       lt Copy SourceFiles    ProjectDir bin BLAH Common xml  DestinationFolder    ProjectDir App Data     gt     lt  Target gt    and it works fine now   The specific error I was getting was    PostBuildEvent target  - gt     C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework v4 0 30319 Microsoft Common targets 4291 5   error MSB3073  The command  copy  lt http   1 2 3 4 job BLAHv2 ws Api bin BLAH Common xml gt   lt http   1 2 3 4 job BLAHv2 ws Api App Data BLAH Common xml  gt  exited with code 1    lt http   1 2 3 4 job BLAHv2 ws Api Api csproj  gt

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The one with the  Pings  helped me    but may be explained a little better     For me the solution was to change   copy   TargetDir   TargetName      SolutionDir bin   to this   copy    TargetDir   TargetName        SolutionDir bin    Hope it works for you   -

User · Answer

For those  who use  copy  command in Build Events  Pre-build event command line or and Post-build event command line  from Project -  Properties  target folder should exist

User · Answer

The one with the  Pings  helped me    but may be explained a little better     For me the solution was to change   copy   TargetDir   TargetName      SolutionDir bin   to this   copy    TargetDir   TargetName        SolutionDir bin    Hope it works for you   -

User · Answer

For me I had to make sure the the program I was coping file to was not running at the time   There weren t any errors in the syntax   Hope this helps someone

User · Answer

In my case I had to cd  change directory  before calling the bat file  because inside the bat file was a copy operation that specified relative paths      Copy file cd    ProjectDir files build scripts   call  copy bat

User · Answer

For me I had to make sure the the program I was coping file to was not running at the time   There weren t any errors in the syntax   Hope this helps someone

User · Answer

I just received the same error   I had a   in the destination path that needed to be escaped  c  projects  NotAnEnvironmentVariable    needed to be  c  projects   NotAnEnvironmentVariable

User · Answer

As a matter of good practice I suggest you replace the post build event with a MS Build File Copy task

User · Answer

Get process monitor from SysInternals  set it up to watch for the Lunaverse DbVerse  on the Path field  look at the operation result   It should be obvious from there what went wrong

User · Answer

Get process monitor from SysInternals  set it up to watch for the Lunaverse DbVerse  on the Path field  look at the operation result   It should be obvious from there what went wrong

User · Answer

As a matter of good practice I suggest you replace the post build event with a MS Build File Copy task

[visual-studio-2008] Post Build exited with code 1

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