One of my tasks at my day job today is to get continuous integration running on a Jenkins server. It didn't take too long to wrestle MSBuild to the ground and get the build working properly, but when I added an MSTest task, a bunch of unit tests failed with this error:
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'System.Web.Providers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
The System.Web.Providers assembly is properly referenced in the unit test project (it's part of a NuGet package), and the assembly's Copy Local property is set to True.
When the unit tests run from inside Visual Studio 2013, they all work. When ReSharper runs them, they all work. But when I execute the command line:
MSTest.exe /resultsfile:MSTestResults.trx /testcontainer:My.Stupid.Test\bin\My.Stupid.Test.dll /test:MyFailingTest
...it fails with the error I noted above.
I'll spare you the detective work, because I have to get back to work, but I did find the solution. I marked the failing test with a DeploymentItemAttribute:
[TestMethod]
[DeploymentItem("System.Web.Providers.dll")]
public void MyFailingTest()
{
try
{
DoSomeTestyThings();
}
finally
{
CleanUp();
}
}
Now, suddenly, everything works.
And people wonder why I hate command line crap.