Azure DevOps build fails with "The nuget command failed with exit code(1) and error(Cannot determine the packages folder to restore NuGet packages."
This was another peculiar one - something, that didn't bring up too many results on Google. Always fun trying to figure out those!
So, when configuring an Azure DevOps pipeline (build) for a .NET project, you might run into this annoying error:
##[error]The nuget command failed with exit code(1) and error(Cannot determine the packages folder to restore NuGet packages. Please specify either -PackagesDirectory or -SolutionDirectory.
Job: "The nuget command failed with exit code(1) and error(Cannot determine the packages folder to restore NuGet packages. Please specify either -PackagesDirectory or -SolutionDirectory. System.InvalidOperationException: Cannot determine the packages folder to restore NuGet packages. Please specify either -PackagesDirectory or -SolutionDirectory. at NuGet.CommandLine.RestoreCommand.GetPackagesFolder(PackageRestoreInputs ...
While your actual error might be something completely different, the biggest pointer comes from this message (or an internal error, if you had nested ones in the log):
Cannot determine the packages folder to restore NuGet packages. Please specify either -PackagesDirectory or -SolutionDirectory.
Okay - so NuGet doesn't know where to restore the packages to. Suppose we just need to specify that!
And for the record: This is what I had specified in my pipeline configuration for the NuGet task. And this should work most of the time - just in my case, it didn't!
- task: NuGetCommand@2
inputs:
restoreSolution: '$(solution)'
Solution
I hadn't seen this ever before and embarked upon furious googling. Very few results showed up, though, which is kinda weird with Azure DevOps - so many people are already sharing their experiences and best practices, that usually you can find someone who's solved all the issues you might run into!
However, in this particular case, I just ended up taking a few stabs in the dark and guessing what kind of value Azure DevOps might want for "packagesdirectory". While I don't know if it made a difference or not, the parameter name is in lowercase for me.
After a few different tries, this is how I fixed it. Hopefully, it works out for you as well!
- task: NuGetCommand@2
inputs:
restoreSolution: '$(solution)'
packagesdirectory: '..\packages'
This way, the NuGet packages are restored to the solution level. This might not always be what you want - but you can tweak it by changing the value for restoreSolution, and packagesdirectory if need be.
However, it is fine for my use case, as I'm actually building a single project with an inside solution with quite a few different projects. The $(solution) variable reference contains the name of a .csproj-file.
Finally, in case someone is interested, this is what my whole YAML for this very simple build pipeline looks like:
Example YAML for building ASP.NET Projects
# ASP.NET
# Build and test ASP.NET projects.
# Add steps that publish symbols, save build artifacts, deploy, and more:
# https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/devops/pipelines/apps/aspnet/build-aspnet-4
trigger:
- master
# this particular agent was required to make the build run for .NET Framework
pool:
vmImage: 'VS2017-Win2016'
variables:
solution: '**/[projectname].csproj'
buildPlatform: 'AnyCPU'
buildConfiguration: 'Debug'
steps:
- task: NuGetToolInstaller@1
- task: NuGetCommand@2
inputs:
restoreSolution: '$(solution)'
packagesdirectory: '..\packages'
- task: VSBuild@1
inputs:
solution: '$(solution)'
msbuildArgs: '/p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.artifactStagingDirectory)"'
platform: '$(buildPlatform)'
configuration: '$(buildConfiguration)'
- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
inputs:
PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
ArtifactName: 'drop'
publishLocation: 'Container'
References
These links below were helpful in my investigation - hopefully they'll prove useful to you, too!
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