Squirrel.windows: Failing with error code -1, but no logs to indicate why

[patrickklaeren]

I am trying to automate the packing and releasifying of a WPF application. All is well when I manually perform the packing and Squirrel tasks through CMD, however, as soon as the build server takes over, Squirrel is returning a bad error code, with no hint as to why.

I am using Bamboo, the only error message I have comes in the form of:

Failing task since return code of [C:\bamboo-home\temp\HUB-REL-JOB1-37-ScriptBuildTask-7397555972211759263.bat] was -1 while expected 0

When the server executes -releasify, the release directory is created and two files are present: the packed Nuget file and the -full.nupkg package, presumably created by Squirrel. No .msi, RELEASES or other files are created.

The Nuget package is properly created, I have opened the archive to check its contents. Furthermore, once I run -releasify manually, everything _just works_.

C:\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\HUB-REL-JOB1>"C:\nuget.exe" pack "MyProject\.nuspec" 
build   03-Jun-2018 11:08:28    Attempting to build package from '.nuspec'.
build   03-Jun-2018 11:08:31    Successfully created package 'C:\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\HUB-REL-JOB1\TotalRen.Hub.1.0.6.nupkg'.
simple  03-Jun-2018 11:08:31    Finished task 'Pack with Nuget' with result: Success
simple  03-Jun-2018 11:08:31    Starting task 'Pack with Squirrel' of type Script
build   03-Jun-2018 11:08:31    C:\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\HUB-REL-JOB1>"packages\squirrel.windows.1.8.0\tools\Squirrel.exe" -releasify="MyPackage.1.0.6.nupkg" 

I've been clutching at straws, wondering if the console is prematurely exited, so added a delay, which didn't help.

Is there some way of getting a more verbose log or some other place I could look to see why it's failing?

[bddckr]

Have a look at the log file:
https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/blob/master/docs/faq.md#packaging

[patrickklaeren]

Ah, much appreciated. Apologies for missing that.

2018-06-03 11:08:33> Utility: Failed to extract file C:\bamboo-home\xml-data\build-dir\HUB-REL-JOB1\Releases\MyPackage-1.0.6-full.nupkg to C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\SquirrelTemp\tempa

Am I right to assume I need to explicitly define the output or is this a permission issue?

[bddckr]

I don't believe there's a setting to change that internal temp path Squirrel uses. Normally it would write into the current Windows user's %localappdata%/SquirrelTemp folder, which we can see above, but in your environment that one lives inside of system32 which is most likely indeed a permission issue...

This is where my knowledge ends 😬

[patrickklaeren]

Looks like I found the issue, #1081

Appreciate your quick response. I'll close the issue :)