Message: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.: \r\n\r\n

at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.EndGetResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.WebRequest.PlatformHttpClient.EndGetResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.WebRequest.RestClientResponseRetriever.EndGetAsyncMemoryStreamFromResponse(IAsyncResult asyncResult, IPlatformHttpClient platformHttpClient)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.WebRequest.RestClientResponseRetriever.EndDownloadString(IAsyncResult asyncResult, IPlatformHttpClient platformHttpClient)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.WebRequest.RestClient.EndPost(IAsyncResult asyncResult)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.Proxy.RestProxy.HttpRequestor.<>c__DisplayClass1.<GetPostCaller>b__0(String url, String body)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.Proxy.RestProxy.BaseNotificationServiceProxy.SendNotification(Int32 releaseId, String releaseName, String applicationVersionName, String stageTypeName, String environmentName, Int32 releaseStepId, Int32 releaseStepTypeId, Boolean releaseStepIsAutomated)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Workflow.Services.ReleaseWorkflowService.CreateNextReleaseStep(Release release, Stage stage, StageStep stageStep, Int32 releaseStageRank, Int32 trialNumber)

at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Workflow.Services.ReleaseWorkflowService.Initiate(Release release)

at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Release.ViewModel.ViewModels.ReleaseViewModel.<StartRelease>b__85(Object sender, DoWorkEventArgs args)

at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Release.ViewModel.ViewModels.ReleaseViewModel.PerformActionAndRefresh(DoWorkEventHandler action, Boolean selectViewEditorBasedOnReleaseStatus)

at Microsoft.VisualStudio.Release.ViewModel.ViewModels.ReleaseViewModel.StartRelease()

It turned out to be the releases were failing because the release name contained special character ‘#’ due to which POST Call URL was getting truncated after ‘#’ char. By URL specifications, “#” is a reference to the start of the current document. Thus, the character "#" should be excluded in that are passed in the URL because it is used to delimit a URI from a fragment identifier in URI.

For Example, let say release name is “My Release #1”. While constructing SendNotification(Email notifications to the step approver) POST Call we expect below URL

POST  https://rmserver:1000/account/releaseManagementService/_apis/releaseManagement/NotificationService/SendNotification?releaseId=1&releaseName=My%20Release%20#1&applicationVersionName=ReleaseTemplate1&stageTypeName=Stage1&environmentName=Environment1&StepId=1&releaseStepTypeId=1&releaseStepIsAutomated=True

But due to special meaning of ‘#’ character, URL is truncated and below invalid POST call is made for SendNotification service.

POST  https://rmserver:1000/account/releaseManagementService/_apis/releaseManagement/NotificationService/SendNotification?releaseId=1&releaseName=My%20Release%20 

• The above issue will occur if if any of the artifacts like ReleaseName, ReleaseTemplateName, StageTypeName or EnvironmentName contains special characters like ‘#’.
• The workaround for now is please refrain from using special characters like ‘#’ in any of the artifacts like Release Name, Release Template Name, Stage Name, Environment name etc. till this gets fixed in the future release of the Release Management product.

Thank You.

How to Perform an unattended/silent installation of Release Management Client

1. Download “Release Management for Visual Studio 2013 with Update 4 RTM” from your MSDN subscription using link

2. Launch admin command prompt and run below command

    [PathToRMSetup]\rm_Client.exe /silent

How to Perform an unattended/silent installation of Release Management Client on large number of machines

1. Download “Release Management for Visual Studio 2013 with Update 4 RTM” from your MSDN subscription using link

2. Copy above setup on all remote machines where Release Management client installation is needed

a. Launch “Windows Powershell” as different user(user who has admin permissions on all desired remote machines)

b. Run below powershell command:-[ C:\setup in below command should be available on machine from where the command is being run]

                      foreach ($name in  "Remote-Machine1",”Remote-Machine2") { Copy-Item "C:\setup" –Destination ”\\$name\c$" -Recurse -force }

3. Run below powershell command targeting multiple remote machines:-

                     foreach($name in "Remote-Machine1",”Remote-Machine2"){invoke-command -computername "$name" -scriptblock {&cmd.exe /c "C:\setup\rm_Client.exe /silent"}}

            Note. The highlighted path is remote machine local path.

How to Automatically Pre Configure Release Management Client with desired Release Management Server

When user install Release Management Client and launch it for the first time, below client configuration UI is launched and user need to configure the client with Release Management server. If user wants to get it auto configured without doing it manually, below are the steps for it.

Steps

1. Install Release Management Client
2. Take backup & Edit "[ProgramFilesX86]\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Release Management\Client\bin\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.dll.config"

a. Replace all instances of “https://localhost:[0-9]*/” with “https://[RMServerName]:[port]/”

b. Set highlighted value to False

<setting name="RequestServerLocation" serializeAs="String">

   <value>True</value>

</setting>

c. Save the file 

Note. You can use below powershell script to do edit the file as well rather than doing it manually

$configFile = Join-Path ([Environment]::GetFolderPath('ProgramFilesX86')) 'Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Release Management\Client\bin\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.dll.config'

(Get-Content $configFile) | ForEach-Object {$_ -replace "https://\w+:\d+/", 'https://hostname:port/'} | Set-Content $configFile

$xml = [XML](Get-Content $configFile)

$requestServerLocation = $xml.configuration.applicationSettings.'Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.Properties.Settings'.ChildNodes | Where-Object { $_.name -eq 'RequestServerLocation' }

$requestServerLocation.value = 'false'

$xml.Save($configFile)

 3. Launching client will auto connect with the specified RM server.

Note. You can edit one such file and push it in all machines where you installed RM Client

a. Launch Windows PowerShell as an user who has admin access on desired remote machines

             foreach ($name in "Remote-Machine1",”Remote-Machine2"){ Copy-Item  "C:\temp\Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Release.Data.dll.config" -Destination "\\$name\c$\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Release Management\Client\bin" -force -recurse}