Mysterious error from BTSTask.exe

So I’m currently working with a customer/partner that needs some help with building, deploying and testing BizTalk 2009 applications with TFS 2008 (other post will describe that solution) and as usual I start off in my own virtual environment where I test building, deploying and testing before I deliver the builds to the customer.

Anyway everything is working exactly like my own environment until the build script hits the “export BizTalk 2009 application as msi” section. I get this funny error message:

BizTalk Server Deployment

Error while exporting application <my application> into MSI package. Function failed during execution...

So the first thing I try is running the same command that TFSBuild just ran in my own Command Prompt, and of course it runs without any errors. So I start looking for stuff that differs between my account and the TFSBuild service account. I go through all the permissions and security groups without any luck. So I continue with my search in the TFSBuild log and find that the temp directory for the service account looks a bit strange:

C:\users\ \<TFSBuild Service Account\>\Tmp\...

Can you see the problem?

There was a space in the name for the TFSBuild service account and that made the ExportApp function of BTSTask to fail. The solution in my case was to set the environment variables TEMP and TMP to nicer paths like C:\Temp or C:\Tmp and the build worked.

So don’t use spaces in your account names because you never know what problems you’ll run into.

Cheers!

Hugo