Azure task Advanced Installer Build fails - missing mscordaccore_x86_x86_4

[rafw86]

Hi, I have created a AzureDevOps pipeline for a .NET Core 3.1 application. It was working fine for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, since yesterday I am getting following error:

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Checking builds status 
Resources referred by the project are missing: 
d:\a\1\s\*\Publish\win-x86\mscordaccore_x86_x86_4.700.20.11803.dll 
 
Build finished because an error was encountered.
##[error]Failed to execute Advanced Installer task. Error: SetOutputLocation -path "d:\a\1\Installer package" -buildname "DefaultBuild"
Build -buildslist "DefaultBuild"

Even without any changes in code, using previous, successfully builded commits before, I get now this error.

Some details the installer build:
- artifacts are build from .NET Core console application which is published over standard Visual publish for winx86
- Details of the Advanced Installer Build task used in the pipeline:

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Task         : Advanced Installer Build
Description  : Build setup packages using Advanced Installer.
Version      : 2.0.2
Author       : Caphyon
Help         : 
==============================================================================
Checking if a cached copy exists for this version...
Found tool in cache: advinst 17.0.0 x86
Cached copy of AdvancedInstaller exists. No need to install afresh. Cached tool location: C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\advinst\17.0.0\x86.
Registering Advanced Installer.
C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\advinst\17.0.0\x86\bin\x86\AdvancedInstaller.com /RegisterCI ***
Prepending PATH environment variable with directory: C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\advinst\17.0.0\x86\bin\x86

[Catalin]

Hello,

From the part of the log file that you have provided, it looks like a dependency is missing - in this case, a .DLL file.

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Resources referred by the project are missing: 
d:\a\1\s\*\Publish\win-x86\mscordaccore_x86_x86_4.700.20.11803.dll

Please make sure, in Azure DevOps, that all of your setup project dependencies are present. You can do so from "Repos" --> "Files" --> "Contents":

Repo.png (129.76 KiB) Viewed 13589 times

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Catalin

[rafw86]

Hello,

as the project I was participating 2 years ago is being restarted I have the possibility to work with advanced installer again. Unfortunately, the build pipeline which was working before and remained unchanged since then fails due to advanced installer task. This time the build fails without any reasonable log message (log is attached)

What I has changed since the latest successful build 2 years ago:
- The certificate for digital signature of the installer is expired so I have disabled the digital signature
- Version of the advanced installer task is upgraded 2.0.7 => 2.0.12
- The advanced installer key is still valid

Locally on my dev machine the AIP is built successfully. I suppose it must be a breaking change within the upgrade 2.0.7 => 2.0.12 but I have no clue what it can be.

[rafw86]

OK, I think I found the problem in a related thread. It is indeed a a pain in.... and smells like a poor concept in terms of backwards compatibility. It is kind of ugly forcing the users to upgrade, because the build pipeline using AzureDevOps tasks suddenly stopped working after releasing a new version of the task. I suggest you to rethink this approach and as a MUST HAVE minimum place in the logs a proper error with a suggestion what can be done. That will still be a poor solution without ensuring backwards compatibility, but at least to new customers or (as in my case) to people not being familiar with the advanced installer lifecycle for 2 years this may save some hours of digging and try-outs. An acceptable solution to me would be to have the ability to choose the minor version of dev ops task (or splitting properly the breaking changes into selectable major task versions).

[Catalin]

Hello,

I sincerely apologize for the frustration and inconvenience you've experienced due to the issues with our AzureDevOps tasks.

As explained in the thread you've linked, this is the approach we're currently following. Everytime we fix something, it will be available in the next version.

Thank you for your understanding!

Best regards,
Catalin