I have a Visual Studio Online build definition that seems to be misbehaving, but I'm not sure if I've just misconfigured something.
There is a build step which is configured as follows:
Type: Visual Studio Build
Solution: **\mysolutionfile.sln
MSBuild Arguments: /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="$(build.stagingDirectory)"
The build runs successfully, and the build log shows the msbuild command is executed as follows:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin\msbuild.exe" "C:\a\1\s\Code\mysolutionfile.sln" /nologo /nr:false /dl:CentralLogger,(more removed for brevity) /p:DeployOnBuild=true /p:WebPublishMethod=Package /p:PackageAsSingleFile=true /p:SkipInvalidConfigurations=true /p:PackageLocation="C:\a\1\a" /p:platform="any cpu" /p:configuration="release" /p:VisualStudioVersion="14.0" /p:_MSDeployUserAgent="VSTS_6efdabeb-1c75-43a7-96b2-f40e19a68a35_build_14_122"
As you can see, the package location is correctly set: /p:PackageLocation="C:\a\1\a"
However, later in the build log, the package step shows this log entry:
2017-01-20T05:07:30.9771422Z Executing command ["C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3\msdeploy.exe" -source:manifest='C:\Users\buildguest\AppData\Local\Temp\PublishTemp\obj\mysolution55\SourceManifest.xml' -dest:package='C:\a\1\s\Code\mysolutionfile\bin\Release\MSDeployPackage\mysolutionfile.zip' -verb:sync -replace:match='C:\\Users\\buildguest\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\PublishTemp\\mysolutionfile55\\',replace='website\' -retryAttempts:20 -disablerule:BackupRule]
As you can see, in this case the package is being sent to -dest:package='C:\a\1\s\Code\mysolutionfile\bin\Release\MSDeployPackage\mysolutionfile.zip' - and this is indeed where the zip file ends up.
As far as I can tell, this looks wrong. I want to have the packaged application binaries and files end up in the staging directory, but msbuild is overriding me somewhere and putting them into the source checkout folder.
In case it's relevant, the solution contains two projects: an ASP.NET Core web app that is targeting the full .NET Framework; and a portable class library.
Am I doing something wrong in the build configuration?
I reproduced your issue in my TFS Environment and I got the same result with. The package under the "C:\a\1\s" folder not "C:\a\1\a'.
As a workaround, you could add a Copy files step to copy the package from the source folder to $(build.stagingDirectory) path.