TFS Build “PowerShell on Target Machines” Step Fails: How to debug?

Question

I'm trying to automate the deployment of the solution my team is working on through TFS Build server. One of the steps which executes a PowerShell script on the target machine fails with the following error:

Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server : Login failed for user 'sa'..

The PowerShell script I'm trying to execute does in fact connect to multiple databases using the sa credentials. When I try to execute the same script passing it the exact same arguments by hand (ie: executing the script from the target machine VM itself) it works like a charm. But when it is being executed as part of the build steps it fails with the aforementioned error.

Is there a way to further debug the issue? It would be great if there is a way to output trace statements from the script so I could have some insight on what is actually going on.

Answer 1

Usually all the related error should reflect in TFS build log. To narrow your issue you can try to connect to the TFS build agent with the credentials used for the build service and manually run the ps script.

If you execute the ps script with your own account, which will not help to the issue. Usually this kind of problems is related to permissions. Your build service account are lack of related permission. Try to add it to Administrator or SQL Administrator group and execute the build again.