Jeffrey Chilberto : Visual Studio 2005

BizTalk 2010 Upgrade Issue

chilberto — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:17:00 GMT

In a BizTalk 2006r2 solution, we encountered a build issue with BizTalk where a map that referenced a particular schema was causing BizTalk to fail to build. The symptom was that Visual Studio would continually build until it ran out of memory. The cause of the issue was tracked down to a particular service that was generated from the Entity Framework and contained inter-referencing classes. Normally this would not cause the issue but EF decorated the contracts in manner that confused the BizTalk build process only if the referenced schema was the source schema.

At the time, I found a workaround that I thought was clever…

In the map, I set the message type of the source schema to the XLANG Any message. This would build, and using custom xslt I could achieve what was required.

The upgrade of these maps from 2006r2 to 2009 did not display any issue. I did notice that a Schema referenced by Map has been deleted error would be displayed if the map was selected in a Receive Location’s Inbound or Outbound Map. The map would still work in BizTalk 2009.

After upgrading to BizTalk 2010, the Admin Console displays the message on the initial refresh of the BizTalk Group applications and no applications are displayed. I did find that if I restarted a host instance, the applications would then display in the console.

The error message in BizTalk 2009 is a annoying but would not affect functionality. The maps would work at runtime.

In BizTalk 2010, the maps still work at runtime but the issue in the Admin Console is more severe and prevents functionality from being run. For instance, if the library with the map is removed from resources, the error message is displayed and no action is applied. Once a map is deployed with the issue there is not a way to remove it (without hacking the databases).

The upgrade procedure was reviewed and the issue confirmed by a Microsoft consultant. The issue is being submitted to the product group to review.

Note: I did try to remove the group and re-connect.
Note: I did try to remove the library via powershell but the same issue was encountered:

BizTalk Namespace Issue

chilberto — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:31:20 GMT

Here is a little gem that I have come across recently... I have only confirmed this in BizTalk 2006 R2.

If you create a receive shape with a filter expression of (BTS.Operation=="somevalue") and your namespace contains BTS. then you will get a build failure similar to:

The type or namespace name 'Operation' does not exist in the namespace 'Spike.BTS' (are you missing an assembly reference?)

It appears that during compilation it is trying to resolve the BTS.Operation in the project assembly. I was surprised by this one and have created several projects in the past with BTS. in the namespace without encountering an issue.

To illustrate, I created a project named Spike.BTS.WeirdSubscriptionIssue

If a receive shape is created with a filter expression referencing any BTS.* class, you will not be able to compile.

Where

Strange...

Anyone else encountered this before?

BAM Tip: Visual Studio External Tools

chilberto — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:32:46 GMT

Here is a simple way to open a command window from within Visual Studio that is aware of the BizTalk Management Utility (bm.exe). I have found this useful while working with interceptor configuration files. This tip will add the Visual Studio Command Prompt to the Tools menu.

Nothing too dramatic here, just a time saver when defining interceptor configuration files from within Visual Studio without adding shortcuts on my desktop or quick launch bar.

Add Visual Studio Command Prompt to External Tools

Simply select the External Tools option off of the Tools menu. To keep thing simple, I basically duplicated the Visual Studio Command prompt settings by viewing its properties.

Modify Visual Studio Command Prompt's PATH

Depending on the operating system you are running Visual Studio on, the following will be different. To determine where to modify, open the file indicated in the command arguments. For me it was: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcvarsall.bat.

In the file you will see a supplied parameter, e.g., x86, indicates were the settings are located for the specific operating system. Note that %~dp0 indicates the where the batch file was run from. For me it was: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\bin\vcvars32.bat.

This file just pointed to another file C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat. In this file is where the environment settings are stored. I modified the file to include the location of bm.exe as part of the PATH environment variable. The following line was inserted after the current @set PATH line:

@set PATH=C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Tracking;%PATH%

WSS 3.0: Getting Started with WebParts

chilberto — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:20:00 GMT

The following are some notes on getting the Creating a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web Part Using Visual Studio 2005 Extensions of the SDK to work.

No SharePoint Site exists at the specified URL

In the Visual Studio Project Properties, the Debug section contains a setting: Start browser with URL. This needs to reference the sharepoint site. For instance if your sharepoint site is on the Euclid box at port 8080, then it will need to be set to http://Euclid:8080/.

Otherwise the error will be reported durnig deployment as: No SharePoint Site exists at the specified URL.

Enabling ASP.Net Debugging

The debug attribute for compilation needs to be set to true in order for debugging of the web parts from within Visual Studio. If the option is not set, the deploy will succeed but a browser will not be launched and attached to Visual Studio.

Web Part not showing in Miscellaneous section

If after you have deployed to your Sharepoint Site and you are not able to add the newly deployed web part, make sure you have deployed it to the correct site. In my case, I was not able to view it in the Miscellaneous section. Fortunately I found a helpful post: http://www.developer.com/net/asp/article.php/10917_3620316_1

VS 2005: Template File missing when creating new Test Project

chilberto — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:24:00 GMT

After upgrading from VS 2005 Professional to VS 2005 Team Suite I found that when I attempted to create a new Test Project, I was greeted with a error dialog stating: "Template File missing when creating new Test Project".

Fortunately after a google search, there was an easy fix that involves re-installing the SP1 for Visual Studio.