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Debug your TFS/VSO 2015 builds 
Jesse Houwing 18 Nov, 2015
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Today at a customer I received notifications of failing builds. Before the weekend all was running OK and this morning builds started to fail. After first inspections it turned out that only my XAML based builds were failing. V-Next type builds worked OK.
Below is an example of the failure:
The error in plain text:
TF215097: An error occurred while initializing a build for build definition xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-DEV: Exception Message: A procedure imported by 'Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.Compiler.dll' could not be loaded. (type FileLoadException) Exception Stack Trace: at Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.VisualBasicHelper.CompileT at Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.VisualBasicHelper.CompileT at Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.VisualBasicHelper.CompileT at Microsoft.VisualBasic.Activities.VisualBasicValue1.CacheMetadata(CodeActivityMetadata metadata) at System.Activities.CodeActivity1.OnInternalCacheMetadataExceptResult(Boolean createEmptyBindings) at System.Activities.Activity1.OnInternalCacheMetadata(Boolean createEmptyBindings) at System.Activities.Activity.InternalCacheMetadata(Boolean createEmptyBindings, IList1& validationErrors) at System.Activities.ActivityUtilities.ProcessActivity(ChildActivity childActivity, ChildActivity& nextActivity, Stack1& activitiesRemaining, ActivityCallStack parentChain, IList1& validationErrors, ProcessActivityTreeOptions options, ProcessActivityCallback callback) at System.Activities.ActivityUtilities.ProcessActivityTreeCore(ChildActivity currentActivity, ActivityCallStack parentChain, ProcessActivityTreeOptions options, ProcessActivityCallback callback, IList1& validationErrors) at System.Activities.ActivityUtilities.CacheRootMetadata(Activity activity, LocationReferenceEnvironment hostEnvironment, ProcessActivityTreeOptions options, ProcessActivityCallback callback, IList1& validationErrors) at System.Activities.Validation.ActivityValidationServices.InternalActivityValidationServices.InternalValidate() at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Workflow.WorkflowHelpers.ValidateWorkflow(Activity activity, ValidationSettings validationSettings) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Hosting.BuildProcessCache.LoadFromXaml(String workflowXaml, TextExpressionImports textExpressionImports) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Hosting.BuildControllerWorkflowManager.PrepareRequestForBuild(WorkflowManagerActivity activity, IBuildDetail build, WorkflowRequest request, IDictionary`2 dataContext) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Build.Hosting.BuildWorkflowManager.TryStartWorkflow(WorkflowRequest request, WorkflowManagerActivity activity, BuildWorkflowInstance& workflowInstance, Exception& error, Boolean& syncLockTaken)
First explorations did not immediately gave me a clue but after some digging I came up with the following link: Known issue for security updates 3098779 and 3097997 for the .NET Framework 4.5.1 and 4.5.2 after you install the .NET Framework 4.6 on Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2
Reviewing the post verified that this was compliant with my scenario.
I followed resolution 1, by first installing the update to 4.6.1. This however did not fix my issues. Thus I rolled this update back. I then continued uninstalling KB3097997 and KB3098779. The latter required a reboot.
After rebooting I was able to queue my XAML Builds again successfully.
Happy Building!
