Pulling files using MS TEE 14.136.0 is getting all files in zero byte length

Question

We use MS TEE 14.136.0 to create TFVC workspaces and pull files from the server. This is used within Jenkins pipelines. This was working all these years until yesterday when all files pulled are ZERO BYTES in length.

I have cleared cache, tried using the latest TEE version and that did not work either.

TEE = Microsoft Team Explorer Everywhere (https://github.com/Microsoft/team-explorer-everywhere/releases)

We must use this tool as we create workspaces on Linux as well as Windows and we do not have a supported Jenkins plugin to access TFVC repositories.

Question: What could impact this functionality? This is seen on all my build servers at this point.

Answer 1

Hello KalkunteArun-5597,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A and thank you for posting your questions here.

I understand that when you are pulling files using MS TEE 14.136.0 is getting all files in zero-byte length.

This is a known issue of a content retrieval failure rather than a normal workspace issue. because TEE is no longer maintained by Microsoft. Yes! TEE can authenticate and read TFVC metadata, but fails specifically during the file-content download stream. What you can do is to stop using TEE for the production tf get content download path and move the build retrieval step to a supported path, native tf.exe on Windows agents, or the documented TFVC REST API for Linux/custom automation. - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/repos/tfvc/get-command?view=azure-devops

For Windows build agents, replace TEE CLC with tf.exe from Visual Studio or Team Explorer and run the same workspace mapping and get operation using the native Microsoft TFVC client. For Linux build agents, use the Azure DevOps TFVC Items REST API with download=true to retrieve file content, because the REST API explicitly supports getting TFVC item metadata and/or content. - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/azure/devops/tfvc/items/get?view=azure-devops-rest-7.1

NOTE: Team Explorer Everywhere is no longer maintained by Microsoft, and Microsoft documents TFVC as feature-complete, with future version-control investment going to Git. Therefore, the stable path is to remove TEE from the build-critical download flow now, then plan either a native Windows TFVC client strategy or a TFVC-to-Git migration later. - https://github.com/microsoft/team-explorer-everywhere, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/repos/tfvc/comparison-git-tfvc?view=azure-devops Use the associated resource links for more reading and steps.

I hope this is helpful. Please! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions, steps or clarifications.

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Answer 2

Hi @KalkunteArun-5597 ,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and thank you for posting your question.

Azure DevOps Server is functioning correctly, as both Visual Studio and the native tf.exe client are able to retrieve the same files successfully.

The issue occurs outside of Jenkins, so it is not specific to the Jenkins pipeline.

The behavior is reproducible across multiple machines, including fresh VMs, and with both MS TEE 14.136.0 and the latest available TEE version.

Authentication, workspace creation, mappings, and metadata operations (such as tf history and label operations) are all working correctly.

The issue affects all files, including individual file downloads, and each file is retrieved as zero bytes without any errors being reported by TEE.

The fact that every file is consistently downloaded as zero bytes, rather than only certain files being truncated or large files failing, makes it less likely that this is a typical network interruption or transfer timeout. Combined with the successful results from Visual Studio and tf.exe, the evidence points to the issue being isolated to TEE's file content retrieval rather than TFVC connectivity, authentication, or Azure DevOps Server itself.