Rfennells

Fix for 500 internal errors when trying to trigger a Release Management pipeline from a build via the REST API
Richard Fennell Jun 17, 2015 · 2 min read · Uncategorised ·
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With the help of the Release Management team at Microsoft I now have a working REST based automated TFS Build to Release Management pipeline. Previously we were using a TFS automated build and then manually triggering our agent based Release Management pipeline. When we moved to a vNext PS/DSC based RM pipeline I took …
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Failing Ping tests on Application Insights
Richard Fennell Jun 8, 2015 · 1 min read · Uncategorised ·
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Whilst setting up Application Insights on one of our web sites I hit a problem. The target site appeared to be working OK, but if I setup a ping test it failed.
Digging into the failure, as with much of Application Insights just keep clicking to go deeper, I found the issue was that a CSS file was failing to load.

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Windows Media Center issues again
Richard Fennell Jun 8, 2015 · 2 min read · Uncategorised ·
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Today was my day for semi annual Media Center (MCE) problems. As usual they seemed to start with an unexpected power issue, a local power cut, maybe the answer is a UPS for the TV setup? Once the PC was rebooted it had forgotten it had any tuners. If I tried to view live TV or re-setup the TV signal it just hung with a …
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Strange TFS build process template editing issue with Typemock
Richard Fennell Jun 2, 2015 · 2 min read · Uncategorised ·
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Had a strange issue today while editing our standard TFS 2013 XAML build process template to add an optional post drop script block to allow a Release Management pipeline to be triggered via REST. Our standard template includes a block for enabling and disabling Typemock, after editing our template to add the new …
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Build and Ignite Event Sessions
Richard Fennell May 28, 2015 · 1 min read · Uncategorised ·
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If you came to our re:Build and re:Ignite events last week and want more information on the subjects we covered, remember that all the sessions from both the Microsoft Build and Ignite events are available at http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2015 and http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015. On these sites you …
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Free Black Marble Build and Ignite round up event in Yorkshire
Richard Fennell May 7, 2015 · 1 min read · Uncategorised ·
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Did you miss content from Microsoft Build and Ignite events?
Well you can catch up on Channel9, but we at Black Marble are running free round up events on the 20th May in Leeds.
Why not come and talk to Black Marble and Microsoft staff who attended the events?
To register go to the Black Marble events site.

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Generating MsTest wrappers for nUnit tests
Richard Fennell May 7, 2015 · 4 min read · Uncategorised ·
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Recently whilst at a clients one of our consultants came across an interesting issue; the client was using Selenium to write web tests, they wanted to trigger them both from Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) as local automated tests, and also run them using BrowserStack for multi browser regression testing. The problem was …
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MSDeploy Parameters.xml can only replace web.config values is a value is already set
Richard Fennell May 1, 2015 · 2 min read · Uncategorised ·
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If you are using a parameters.xml file to set value with MSDeploy I have just found a gotcha. You need some value in the web.config file, not just an empty XML tag, else the replacement fails. So to explain…
I had the following parameters.xml file, and use Release Management to replace the __TAG__ values at deployment …

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A Visual Studio Extension to create MSDeploy parameters.xml files
Richard Fennell Apr 28, 2015 · 2 min read · Uncategorised ·
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When you using MSdeploy you should create a parameters.xml file that exposes your web.config settings at the time of installation. This enables good deployment habits, build the product one and then set system specific values using deployment tools. The problem is that this parameters.xml file is a pain to write, it is …
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May is a busy time for events
Richard Fennell Apr 23, 2015 · 1 min read · Uncategorised ·
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Mid May is a busy time for me presenting-wise:
- On the 12th/13th I am presenting at Techorama in Belgium
- And on the 14th I will be presenting at a Microsoft/GreyMatter event at Microsoft’s Reading office.
And after that there are also the Black Marble Re:Build and Re:Ignite events. I am sure I will be involved at …

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