Invalid License Exception when building TDS projects

Question

We're running Sitecore 6.5 with a few TDS projects, and I've been trying to get TFS builds to work on our TFS Build server. We receive the following error when the projects attempt to build:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\HedgehogDevelopment\SitecoreProject\v9.0\HedgehogDevelopment.SitecoreProject.targets (354): 
Exception Invalid License(Exception) in file sitecore\content.item. 
Stack trace: at HedgehogDevelopment.SitecoreProject.Tasks.CollectSitecoreItems.Execute()

We've installed TDS on the build server, and I've verified in the registry that the license key matches to our license. Not quite sure what might be the next step. Has anybody encountered this issue with TDS continuous integration builds before?

Chiton

Answer 1

I appreciate that this is an old question but wanted to add this in case anyone else stumbles upon it.

I've been setting up TDS on Visual Studio Online (what was TFS Online) following this wonderful article from Michael Edwards: http://www.experimentsincode.com/?p=586

Although it's a bit vague at the end of the article - you can actually include the License info with a config file. You have to add this file manually here: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\HedgehogDevelopment\SitecoreProject\v9.0 Call the file TDSLicense.config

Save the following (with your license information in) in the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<license Owner="CompanyName" Key="aaaa-bbb-ccc-dddd" />

If it's a permissions issue with reading the license from the registry - this should sort it out.

Micheal's blog post is well worth a read - it goes over and above what I've detailed here.

Anthea

surely this should be the accepted answer. Sometimes I really wish I could upvote more than once – Heurlin

I really wish I had noticed this answer had been added to my question. I had worked around the issue, but 9 months later had run into the same problem again. Thank you @Owen Niblock! – Chiton

Brilliant, thank you so much. The documentation lacks info like this. The config's filename should be TDSLicense.config not TDSLicence.config tho :) – Philologian

It might be helpful to someone to point if you're using TDS 5.5 documentation recommends passing the license as TDS_Owner and TDS_Key Environment Variables. Adding the TDSLicense.config did not work for us, but adding the license as variables as described in this document resolved the issue: hedgehogdevelopment.github.io/tds/chapter5.html – Lashelllasher

@McCheeseIt, you should submit that as the separate answer that it is so it can be upvoted and not so buried since it's a more elegant solution (and the one documented by the developer). – Huffy

Answer 2

I'm not exactly sure I have an answer, but 2 things that happen to me frequently are:

1. The Hedgehog license expires once a month (not sure if that's my companie's agreement)
2. Sometimes I can't use TDS sync unless I re-install the SiteCore connector. Luckily, there's a button built-in for that: just right-click on TDS in Visual Studio, and select "Install SiteCore connector".

Hope this helps.

Stillness