How to Fix the [ERROR] Get-ChildItem when Deploying an Azure Resource Group in Visual Studio

Lately, I've been having some trouble when deploying from Visual Studio. First, I didn't care since I didn't have time to investigate and also because most of the time using PowerShell or Azure CLI. However, this issue was not usual of Visual Studio, so I decided to see what was the problem and try to fix it.

The Problem

In a solution, I added a simple Azure Resource Group deployment project just like this one.



Then when I try to right-click and do a Deploy...



I was having this error message:

 - The following parameter values will be used for this operation:
 - Build started.
 - Project "TestARMProject.deployproj" (StageArtifacts target(s)):
 - Project "TestARMProject.deployproj" (ContentFilesProjectOutputGroup target(s)):
 - Done building project "TestARMProject.deployproj".
 - Done building project "TestARMProject.deployproj".
 - Build succeeded.
 - Launching PowerShell script with the following command:
 - 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1' -StorageAccountName '' -ResourceGroupName 'TestARMProject' -ResourceGroupLocation 'eastus' -TemplateFile 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.json' -TemplateParametersFile 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.parameters.json' -ArtifactStagingDirectory '.' -DSCSourceFolder '.\DSC'
 - 
 - 
 - Account          : Frank Boucher
 - SubscriptionName : My Subscription
 - SubscriptionId   : xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 - TenantId         : xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
 - Environment      : AzureCloud
 - 
 - VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Replacing resource group ..." on target "".
 - VERBOSE: 7:06:33 - Created resource group 'TestARMProject' in location 'eastus'
 - 
 - ResourceGroupName : TestARMProject
 - Location          : eastus
 - ProvisioningState : Succeeded
 - Tags              : 
 - TagsTable         : 
 - ResourceId        : /subscriptions/xxxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/resourceGroups/TestARMProject
 - 
 - Get-ChildItem : Cannot find path 
 - 'D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\azuredeploy.json' because it does not 
 - exist.
 - At D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1:108 
 - char:48
 - + ... RmResourceGroupDeployment -Name ((Get-ChildItem $TemplateFile).BaseNa ...
 - +                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 -     + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (D:\Dev\local\Te...zuredeploy.json:String) [Get-ChildItem], ItemNotFound 
 -    Exception
 -     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
 -  
 - Deploying template using PowerShell script failed.
 - Tell us about your experience at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691202

Apparently the script is failling with Get-ChildItem because my script is missing?! I looked in the folder D:\Dev\local\TestARMProject\TestARMProject\bin\Debug\staging\TestARMProject, and indeed the files are missing! Fixing this is in fact really simple fortunately.

The Solution

The problem is very simple when Visual Studio is building the project, it doen't copies the script files in the build folder (in this case bin\Debug\Staging\). In fact, Visual Studio is doing exactly as we are telling it. Let see the build command for those files. Right-click and select Properties (or Alt+Enter) while azuredeploy.json is selected.



See the Build Action is set at None change that to Content (for all the scripts). Save and Deploy again.



Enjoy!

Reading Notes #271

 

 

Suggestion of the week

• Azure Functions vs Web Jobs: How to choose? (Chris Pietschmann) - Wow! This is the best post I've read about Azure Function. It really describes clearly the differences between the two. A must for every cloud developer.

Cloud

• Creating Azure Key Vault with logging using Azure Resource Manager ARM templates (Stéphane Lapointe) - Nice post that shows how to use the quick template and explains how pieces work together.

Programming

• Announcing New ASP.NET Core and Web Development Features in Visual Studio 2017 (Jeffrey T. Fritz ) - With the release of VS2017this week comes also a lot of great improvements in the .Net Core tooling, and that a good news.
  
• Azure App Service Authentication in an ASP.NET Core Application (Adrian Hall) - Interesting tutorial to learn more about security (authentification) with Asp.Net Core.
  
• Azure Functions Visual Studio Tools Preview (Chris Pietschmann) - Great improvement, we can now work, code, and debug in our "home " comfort.
  
• Simplifying Bundling and Minification in ASP.NET Core (Shayne Boyer) - This post is the perfect tutorial, short and complete. After reading it, you will be ready to use this package.

Databases

• Azure Data Lake Tools for VSCode (Preview) - March Update (Jenny Jiang) - Really cool extension.

Miscellaneous

• Azure Data Sync update (Joshua Gnanayutham) - This post shares the road map of a very useful tool. Glad to see it coming in the new Azure Portal.
  
• Microsoft has created an A.I. that can write its own code (QuHarrison Terry) - Interesting innovation, it will be nice to see where that will bring us.
  
• Swarm Mode with Fleet Management and Collaboration now in public beta, powered by Docker Cloud (Borja Burgos) - Interesting new feature available on all the main "Docker platform".

Reading Notes #257

Suggestion of the week

• Microsoft Connect(); 2016 Recap (Joseph Hill) - Three full day of great content. However, if you are like me, you didn't that much free time. Fortunately, all the presentations are available in video on demand. You need a summary because even if the keynote was really good... it is still 2h30, this post is the place to start.

Cloud

• .NET Web Development and Tools Blog (Jeffrey T. Fritz) - Really cool tutorial with Visual studio, Docker, and Azure that repeat the Connect keynote demo.
  
• Five Days of Azure Functions (James Chambers) - Nice post to know more about these Azure functions that everyone is talking about.
  
• Azure App Services Continuous Delivery (Gopinath C) - This post explains how easy it is to setup a continuous integration with Azure.

Programming

• Visual Studio 2017 Release Candidate (John Montgomery) - More details about all the new stuff announced this week related to VS.
  
• The expanding Visual Studio family of products - Another post that lists all the new Visual Studio's news for the week.
  
• Using MongoDB with Web API and ASP.NET Core (Mahesh Sabnis) - Dotnet core is now much more stable and so much more performant. It worth to try it.
  
• Visual Studio Code just keeps getting better - with extensions (Scott Hanselman) - Visual Studio Code is awesome; get a list of some cool extensions in this post.

Miscellaneous

• 8 million GitHub profiles were leaked from GeekedIn's MongoDB - here's how to see yours (Troy Hunt) - Interesting post about a leak of information related to Github account.
  
• Reconnect Outlook 2016 or Outlook 2013 to Outlook.com to fix issues after Outlook.com upgrade - Outllook.com is doing a facelift. That an important upgrade could impact your access to it. If you are syncing it from Outlook on your desktop. This post explains what to do, when to it, and how to proceed.
  
• Docs.microsoft.com - I didn't have the chance to look yet, but now that have done it... Wow great job, and well organized.