VSTS IIS Web App Deploy fails with return 2148734720

Question

I configured releases same way for a couple of our servers but I have issue with one of them (others work perfectly):

[error]Failed to deploy web package to IIS website.

[error]Error: C:\vstsagent\A2_work_tasks\IISWebAppDeploymentOnMachineGroup_1b467810-6725-4b6d-accd-886174c09bba\0.0.20\MSDeploy3.6\msdeploy.exe failed with return code: 2148734720

Unfortunately I can't find anything helpful related to this error Code.

My release configuration:

1. IIS Web App Deploy (Preview)

2. Deployment group with one specific staging server (I'm using on-premise agent)

3. Website name: correct name of my website in IIS

4. Virtual Application: empty field

5. Package of Folder: zip chosen from build drop artifacts

6. Selected "XML variable substitution"

7. Selected "Remove Additional Files at Destination"

What I've already tried with no luck:

• manually turn of application

• delete all files in application folder

• changing user account to use for the service

Again - same configuration for other servers works fine.

Servers configuration: Windows Server 2012R2 Standard x64

Answer 1

Your NET Framework 3.5 is missing on the server.

If you try to investigate the log, you might find out that below line is causing failure.

"C:\vstsagent\A2\_work\_tasks\IISWebAppDeploymentOnMachineGroup_1b467810-6725-4b6d-accd-886174c09bba\0.0.20\MSDeploy3.6\msdeploy.exe" -verb:sync -source:package='C:\vstsagent\A2\_work\r2\a\temp_web_package_8269135298977384.zip' -dest:auto -setParam:name='IIS Web Application Name',value='httproot'

Just try to copy it to CMD, then you will get proper Windows message whenever you will try to execute it.