Omnisharp-vscode: Debugger fails to start because project is built to 'bin\BPC\...' instead of 'bin\...'

[rhires]

Environment data

dotnet --info output:
dotnet --info
.NET Core SDK (reflecting any global.json):
Version: 2.1.302
Commit: 9048955601

Runtime Environment:
OS Name: Windows
OS Version: 6.1.7601
OS Platform: Windows
RID: win7-x64
Base Path: C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\2.1.302\

Host (useful for support):
Version: 2.1.2
Commit: 811c3ce6c0

VSCode Version:
Version: 1.25.1
Commit: 1dfc5e5
Date: 2018-07-11T15:43:53.668Z
Electron: 1.7.12
Chrome: 58.0.3029.110
Node.js: 7.9.0
V8: 5.8.283.38
Architecture: x64

Steps to Reproduce:

1. dotnet new console
2. run in debug mode, get error

Narrative: the issue is that when I run "dotnet new console" it's creating an extra layer of hierarchy that the debug part is not aware of somehow. The screen shot below should illustrate this issue: the paths to the dll are different.

#54668

[gregg-miskelly]

That is very weird. I wonder where the 'BPC' is coming from. Does the name 'BPC' mean anything to you? Ex: could it be something you set somewhere in your environment?

[SIkebe]

This?
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/2253d930-fe68-4ff0-a8f2-19bfbb9a0cbb/msbuild-platformbpc?forum=msbuild

[gregg-miskelly]

Thanks @SIkebe this does sound like the same issue. @rhires can you try removing the 'Platform' environment variable?

[rhires]

No, BPC doesn't mean anything to me. It doesn't seem to be set in my system environment variables. I don't know how to look at MSBuild's settings, or where they are. I've looked at a few resources, but haven't found out the answer of how to view MSBuild's settings (the platform one, in particular)...

[SIkebe]

@rhires

can you try removing the 'Platform' environment variable?

Not "BPC" but "Platform"

[SIkebe]

@rhires Are you using HP machine?

[rhires]

ahhh! I see what you mean now. Yes. That is indeed set as my platform variable. I guess that answers that. I've got a regular Visual Studio install which I use for my daily work, so I'm unsure if removing the platform variable will have any impact on my work...which means I'll leave it be for now.

However - I was originally sent here by the VSCode folks, because the dotnet new console command is picking up that variable, but the debugger doesn't. Who would be responsible for this mismatch, and getting it back in sync?

[gregg-miskelly]

@rhires I would really recommend you remove that environment variable. 'BPC' isn't a valid platform in msbuild. So I think it is more that you haven't noticed it breaking anything yet than that it never will. 'Dotnet run' and Omnisharp work out the output path rather differently, and I am not sure that it would make sense for Omnisharp to pay attention to that variable.

[rhires]

Ok, so I removed it. What does the BPC platform variable mean, anyway?

[gregg-miskelly]

It doesn't sound like the internet knows what is adding Platform=BPC. Do you have any guesses as to what you might have installed?

More information: In the Visual Studio/msbuild world, 'Platform' is usually a CPU architecture (ex: AnyCPU, x86, x64, arm, arm64). Usually VS/msbuild don't pass around 'Platform' as an environment variable, but rather as an an MSBuild property. However, when msbuild starts it will turn all environment variables into properties. This is potentially useful when doing command line builds to avoid needing to repeat /p:Platform=AnyCPU (for example) every time MSBuild is invoked. Though obviously in your case it is just annoying.

[SIkebe]

@rhires I know a few HP PCs that have the variable, too. Are you using HP PC?

[SIkebe]

It seems HP easy setup.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2507856/why-is-my-platform-environment-variable-defined-as-bnb

[rhires]

Thanks! This clears it all up.

[dubeg]

Since it is unlikely by now that HP will ever stop setting the PLATFORM variable to one of their unrelated values, every dev on a HP laptop coding with VS Code will have this issue.

Is the official story to tell them to unset the PLATFORM variable, or could we set in the default csproj template...

<PropertyGroup>  
   <Platform>AnyCPU</Platform>  
</PropertyGroup>  

Or detect if the PLATFORM variable isn't set to one of the known values, and warn the user if so?

I don't know, losing like 30 minutes on this issue felt like a waste of time :P

[gregg-miskelly]

Reopening issue to consider for a possible future release. I think the easiest work around would be to change the task.json generation to include "/p:Platform=AnyCPU". Though I didn't test this to verify.

[ramubhai]

Any simple way to get rid of this addition "/BPC/" or any such sub string specified by HP Easy Setup? Can't delete the system environment variable without admin rights.

[gregg-miskelly]

If you aren't an admin, you could open a command prompt, run set PLATFORM= to clear the environment variable, and launch VS Code from the command prompt. If you do this all the time, you could make yourself a trivial batch script to do this.