Cobalt Website "BuildShadowTask" task fails unexpectedly

Ryan Morlok

When attempting to run the unit tests for Newsroom website, I get the following error as everything attempts to build:

Error 4 The "BuildShadowTask" task failed unexpectedly.
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.BuildShadowReferences.BuildShadowTask.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute()
at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.ExecuteInstantiatedTask(ITaskExecutionHost taskExecutionHost, TaskLoggingContext taskLoggingContext, TaskHost taskHost, ItemBucket bucket, TaskExecutionMode howToExecuteTask, Boolean& taskResult) Cobalt.Website.Newsroom.Web.UnitTests

This is also happening on the build server. Has anyone seen this error before and do you have any idea how to fix it?

Ryan Morlok

I was able to resolve the issue.

The problem was the unit tests project file had the following added to it:





however the reference accessor file was not checked in to TFS. I believe this relates to creating shadow accessors for testing private members.

I deleted the reference to the accessor from the project, rebuilt and everything work. I don't think we were actually using that feature, it was just accidentally added to the project.

The following blog post was useful in diagnosiing the problem:

[http://au9ustine.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/buildshadowtask-failed-unexpectedly/][1]


[1]: http://au9ustine.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/buildshadowtask-failed-unexpectedly/