docfx: MSBuild errors when generating metadata for SDK based net461 project and VS 2017 15.6

DocFX Version Used: 2.32.0

Template used: default with an additional custom css file

Steps to Reproduce:

Checkout the repro project
The project uses net461 as target framework.
Have at least Visual Studio 2017 15.6 installed (same issue with 15.6 Preview 7.0)
Run powershell ./build.ps1 BuildDocFxMetadata at the solution root

Expected Behavior:

Generate no warnings.

Actual Behavior:

Unclear MSBuild warnings are present in the output:

> C:\Users\Georg\.nuget\packages\docfx.console\2.32.0\tools\docfx.exe metadata "D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\docfx.json" --logLevel Verbose
[18-03-06 04:54:21.659]Verbose:Config file "D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\docfx.json" is used.
[18-03-06 04:54:21.697]Info:[ExtractMetadata]Using msbuild E:\Visual Studio 2017\MSBuild\15.0\Bin as inner compiler.
[18-03-06 04:54:21.782]Info:[ExtractMetadata]Loading projects...
[18-03-06 04:54:21.782]Verbose:[ExtractMetadata](D:/Visual Studio Projects/Nuke.WebDeploy/src/Nuke.WebDeploy/Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj)Loading project...
[18-03-06 04:54:22.792]Warning:[ExtractMetadata](D:/Visual Studio Projects/Nuke.WebDeploy/src/Nuke.WebDeploy/Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj)Workspace failed with: [Failure] Msbuild failed when processing the file 'D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\src\Nuke.WebDeploy\Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj' with message: MSB0001: Internal MSBuild Error: Missing resource ''
[18-03-06 04:54:22.903]Verbose:[ExtractMetadata](D:/Visual Studio Projects/Nuke.WebDeploy/src/Nuke.WebDeploy/Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj)Project D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\src\Nuke.WebDeploy\Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj loaded.
[18-03-06 04:54:22.903]Warning:[ExtractMetadata]Project 'D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\src\Nuke.WebDeploy\Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj' does not contain any documents.
[18-03-06 04:54:22.903]Info:[ExtractMetadata]Generating metadata for each project...
[18-03-06 04:54:23.263]Verbose:[ExtractMetadata]Successfully generated metadata D:/Visual Studio Projects/Nuke.WebDeploy/src/Nuke.WebDeploy/obj/xdoc/cache/obj for Nuke.WebDeploy
[18-03-06 04:54:23.274]Verbose:[ExtractMetadata]Completed MergeMetadata in 1,9675 milliseconds.
[18-03-06 04:54:23.274]Verbose:[ExtractMetadata]Completed MergeReference in 0,7387 milliseconds.
[18-03-06 04:54:23.274]Warning:[ExtractMetadata]No metadata is generated for Nuke.WebDeploy.
[18-03-06 04:54:23.274]Info:Completed in 1598,5294 milliseconds


Build succeeded with warning.
[18-03-06 04:54:23.290]Warning:[ExtractMetadata](D:/Visual Studio Projects/Nuke.WebDeploy/src/Nuke.WebDeploy/Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj)Workspace failed with: [Failure] Msbuild failed when processing the file 'D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\src\Nuke.WebDeploy\Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj' with message: MSB0001: Internal MSBuild Error: Missing resource ''
[18-03-06 04:54:23.290]Warning:[ExtractMetadata]Project 'D:\Visual Studio Projects\Nuke.WebDeploy\src\Nuke.WebDeploy\Nuke.WebDeploy.csproj' does not contain any documents.
[18-03-06 04:54:23.290]Warning:[ExtractMetadata]No metadata is generated for Nuke.WebDeploy.
        3 Warning(s)
        0 Error(s)

The interesting bit is:
MSB0001: Internal MSBuild Error: Missing resource '' That doesn’t say a lot about what is wrong and I was unable to find any cause for it.

Additional information

The metadata seems to be generated correctly, it puts files in the /api folder and the documentation looks correct: https://docs.dangl-it.com/Projects/Nuke.WebDeploy/1.0.1-beta0003/index.html

docfx.json specifies metadata.src.properties.TargetFramework as net461.

Manually invoking MSBuild.exe <path-to-csproj> compiles the app just fine, as does dotnet build with SDK 2.1.4 as well as the latest preview 2.1.300-preview1-008174.

The same happens for netstandard and netcoreapp projects, but here I can mitigate it by setting the MSBUILD_EXE_PATH to the one from the dotnet SDK:

// So it uses a fixed, known version of MsBuild to generate the metadata. Otherwise,
// updates of dotnet or Visual Studio could introduce incompatibilities and generation failures
var dotnetPath = Path.GetDirectoryName(ToolPathResolver.GetPathExecutable("dotnet.exe"));
var msBuildPath = Path.Combine(dotnetPath, "sdk", DocFxDotNetSdkVersion, "MSBuild.dll");
SetVariable("MSBUILD_EXE_PATH", msBuildPath);

The error does not happen on my build server, on which I have Visual Studio 2017 15.5.2 It logs that it uses MSBuild from the Visual Studio installation:

Info:[ExtractMetadata]Using msbuild C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\MSBuild\15.0\Bin as inner compiler.

I noticed the same error already yesterday evening on another machine in another project after updating Visual Studio 2017 to 15.6.

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 6 years ago
Reactions: 2
Comments: 15 (7 by maintainers)

Commits related to this issue

Temporary fix for docfx - Update to latest docfx; this doesn't solve the problem, but means we can assume that if the directory is there, the user has already run *this* version of the script. - ... — committed to jskeet/google-cloud-dotnet by jskeet 6 years ago
Temporary fix for docfx - Update to latest docfx; this doesn't solve the problem, but means we can assume that if the directory is there, the user has already run *this* version of the script. - ... — committed to jskeet/google-cloud-dotnet by jskeet 6 years ago
Temporary fix for docfx - Update to latest docfx; this doesn't solve the problem, but means we can assume that if the directory is there, the user has already run *this* version of the script. - ... — committed to jskeet/google-cloud-dotnet by jskeet 6 years ago
Temporary fix for docfx - Update to latest docfx; this doesn't solve the problem, but means we can assume that if the directory is there, the user has already run *this* version of the script. - ... — committed to jskeet/google-cloud-dotnet by jskeet 6 years ago
Temporary fix for docfx - Update to latest docfx; this doesn't solve the problem, but means we can assume that if the directory is there, the user has already run *this* version of the script. - ... — committed to googleapis/google-cloud-dotnet by jskeet 6 years ago
Avoid shipping conflicting MSBuild version The Microsoft.Build.Locator package handles finding MSBuild. It will find the installed version, avoiding problems like #2491 that result from mismatched MS... — committed to rainersigwald/docfx by rainersigwald 6 years ago

Most upvoted comments

The metadata seems to be generated correctly, it puts files in the /api folder and the documentation looks correct

For me the metadata is not generated at all. Try deleting obj folder/cache to force it to regenerate metadata from scratch. I couldnt get it to work at all.

Same MSBuild related errors after updating to VS 15.6

niqhtei on Mar 7, 2018

To piggyback on the workaround, for those on Mac using a recent version of Mono, you’ll need to copy /Library/Frameworks/Mono.framework/Versions/Current/lib/mono/msbuild/15.0/bin/Microsoft.Build.dll

MariusVolkhart on Jul 9, 2018

This is indeed Microsoft/msbuild#2997, which results from a mismatch between the Microsoft.Build.dll version and VS.

You can get the effects of #2494 without waiting for a docfx release by copying the VS-delivered MSBuild assemblies into the docfx folder next to docfx.exe, overwriting what’s there. That worked for me against VS 15.6.1.

S:\work\docfx_locator>docfx\docfx.exe docfx.json
[18-03-09 07:45:15.306]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Using msbuild C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin as inner compiler.
[18-03-09 07:45:15.515]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Loading projects...
[18-03-09 07:45:17.584]Warning:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata](S:/work/docfx_locator/VS156.csproj)Workspace failed with: [Failure] Msbuild failed when processing the file 'S:\work\docfx_locator\VS156.csproj' with message: MSB0001: Internal MSBuild Error: Missing resource ''
[18-03-09 07:45:17.816]Warning:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Project 'S:\work\docfx_locator\VS156.csproj' does not contain any documents.
[18-03-09 07:45:17.855]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Cache for S:/work/docfx_locator/VS156.csproj in S:\work\docfx_locator\obj\xdoc\cache\final\-691546932 is corrupted, rebuild...
[18-03-09 07:45:17.861]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Generating metadata for each project...
[18-03-09 07:45:19.183]Warning:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]No metadata is generated for VS156.
[18-03-09 07:45:19.196]Info:[MetadataCommand]Completed Scope:MetadataCommand in 3929.5966 milliseconds.
[18-03-09 07:45:19.198]Info:Completed in 3938.355 milliseconds


Build succeeded with warning.
[18-03-09 07:45:19.220]Warning:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata](S:/work/docfx_locator/VS156.csproj)Workspace failed with: [Failure] Msbuild failed when processing the file 'S:\work\docfx_locator\VS156.csproj' with message: MSB0001: Internal MSBuild Error: Missing resource ''
[18-03-09 07:45:19.237]Warning:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Project 'S:\work\docfx_locator\VS156.csproj' does not contain any documents.
[18-03-09 07:45:19.251]Warning:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]No metadata is generated for VS156.
        3 Warning(s)
        0 Error(s)

S:\work\docfx_locator>copy "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build*dll" docfx
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Conversion.Core.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.dll
Overwrite docfx\Microsoft.Build.dll? (Yes/No/All): a
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Engine.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Framework.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Core.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin\Microsoft.Build.Utilities.Core.dll
        6 file(s) copied.

S:\work\docfx_locator>docfx\docfx.exe docfx.json
[18-03-09 07:49:25.930]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Using msbuild C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Preview\Enterprise\MSBuild\15.0\Bin as inner compiler.
[18-03-09 07:49:26.157]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Loading projects...
[18-03-09 07:49:30.869]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Cache for S:/work/docfx_locator/VS156.csproj in S:\work\docfx_locator\obj\xdoc\cache\final\-691546932 is corrupted, rebuild...
[18-03-09 07:49:30.882]Info:[MetadataCommand.ExtractMetadata]Generating metadata for each project...
[18-03-09 07:49:34.560]Info:[MetadataCommand]Completed Scope:MetadataCommand in 8683.3688 milliseconds.
[18-03-09 07:49:34.574]Info:Completed in 8703.1626 milliseconds


Build succeeded.
        0 Warning(s)
        0 Error(s)

Having to update the MSBuild reference isn’t ideal and shouldn’t be required; that’s what MSBuildLocator is for. But it looks like Locator + Roslyn MSBuildWorkspace may not be a very happy pairing yet. We’ll need to track down and fix that, @andygerlicher.

rainersigwald on Mar 9, 2018