Why would a post-build step (xcopy) occasionally exit with code 2 in a TeamCity build?
A few projects in my client's solution have a post-build event: xcopy the build output to a specific folder. This works fine when building locally. However, in TeamCity, I occasionally get
xcopy [...] exited with code 2
If I use regular copy, it exits with code 1. I expect this has something to do with file locks, although the specific files being copied are not the same, so perhaps just locking on the shared destination directory. I use /y to not prompt on overwriting files.
Why this fails in TeamCity but not locally?
Answer
Even if you provide the /Y switch with xcopy, you'll still get an error when xcopy doesn't know if the thing you are copying is a file or a directory. This error will appear as "exited with code 2". When you run the same xcopy at a command prompt, you'll see that xcopy is asking for a response of file or directory.
To resolve this issue with an automated build, you can echo in a pre-defined response with a pipe.
To say the thing you are copying is a file, echo in F:
echo F|xcopy /y ...
To say the thing you are copying is a directory, echo in D:
echo D|xcopy /y ...
Sometimes the above can be resolved by simply using a copy command instead of xcopy:
copy /y ...
However, if there are non-existent directories leading up to the final file destination, then an "exited with code 1" will occur.
Remember: use the /C switch and xcopy with caution.