Team Build Error: The Path ... is already mapped to workspace

Question

When creating a new build in Team Foundation Server, I get the following error when attempting to run the new build:

The path C:\Build\ProductReleases\FullBuildv5.4.2x\Sources is already mapped to workspace BuildServer_23.

I am unable to see a workspace by that name in the workspaces dialog.

This is more complicated error, see [other question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2322604/team-build-the-path-path-is-already-mapped-in-workspace-workspace-error-even/4681908#4681908). — psulek, Jan 13 '11 at 15:45

score 147 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 25 '13 at 19:59

147

Use the command line utility TF - Team Foundation Version Control Tool (tf).

You can get a list of all workspaces by bringing up a Visual Studio Command Prompt then changing to your workspace folder and issuing the following commands:

C:\YourWorkspaceFolder>tf workspaces /owner:*

You should see your problem workspace in the list as well as it's owner.

You can delete the workspace with the following command:

C:\YourWorkspaceFolder>tf workspace /delete /server:BUILDSERVER WORKSPACENAME;OWNERNAME

edited Mar 25 '13 at 19:59

AMissico

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answered Oct 22 '08 at 15:30

NotMyself

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I'm getting "Unable to determine the source control server." when running tf workspaces on the build server. Any ideas how to fix this? – Corvin Oct 15 '10 at 16:02
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Corvin: run the command from within the folder that is part of the workspace – Raj Rao Oct 22 '10 at 20:57
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Leave off the /server argument, it's not needed. Otherwise good answer! – nickwesselman Oct 29 '10 at 21:48
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Great answer, only thing I would add is you may need to sign into TFS as the owner of the workspace, or you may get a permission denied error. – JMK Mar 21 '13 at 11:13
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I had this problem as I moved our builds from the UpgradeTemplate to the DefaultTemplate. I had workspaces of the format __ mapping to the \Sources directories. After the upgrade I then had __ mapping to the same sources directories. During the build TFS was unable to find & delete the old workspace so it errored out when trying to create it. The solution, as mentioned here, was to delete the old workspaces. Just adding this bit of info in case it helps anyone else. – David Peters Apr 30 '13 at 18:17
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Note to **git-tfs** users: this answer can solve problems with using TFS through Git as well. – Keith Pinson May 08 '13 at 18:05
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After /delete, I entered "/collection:http::808/tfs/ ..._then_ the workspacename;workspaceowner... worked as expected. My issue was due to re-creating a build definition by the same name. – efisher Jun 04 '13 at 00:46
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`tf workspace delete` certainly pointed me in the right direction. However, it did not work for my particular situation because the workspace I wanted to remove was mapped to a TFS collection that had been taken offline. What I did find effective however, was [clearing the cache](http://stackoverflow.com/a/24599533/1497596) (specfically, removing the GUID-named subfolders) and then editing **LocationServerMap.xml**, **ServerMap.xml**, and **VersionControl.config**. – DavidRR Aug 18 '15 at 15:52
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If you have a convoluted workspace setup like me where you access TFS servers with different windows credentials, you may find that you can view but not delete workspaces that were created with different windows credentials. Delete the TFS connection, launch the Credential Manager and change your credentials in each of the two entries for your TFS server, then re-connect. Now you can delete workspaces under that account. – Christopher Oct 07 '15 at 20:07
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/server:{localhost, buildservername, fully.qualified.buildservername} did nothing for me. when I dropped that it worked. – Chaim Eliyah May 25 '16 at 19:42
I wasn't able to delete the workspace as I got the response "Select one workspace". I then deleted the build definition and created a new one which also solved the problem – Daniël Tulp Jul 08 '16 at 11:53
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@RajRao I'm having the same issue as @Corvin, but when I try to run the command from the command from any folder other than /Common7/IDE, I get `'tf' is not recognized as an internal or external command...`. Any ideas? – CaptainMarvel Sep 14 '16 at 13:49
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When listing the workspaces (all 1562 of them) the "owner" was listed as a nice `Last, First` format, but using that in the delete threw the error `TF10158: The user or group name Last, First contains unsupported characters, is empty, or too long.` I had to use the short login name. – Stephen Jan 25 '18 at 21:48

score 59 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 05 '14 at 13:36

59

Just delete the contents of the following folder(s):

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache

Where UserName is actual or current user, and 3.0 is the version number.

answered Nov 05 '14 at 13:36

Rahim

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This answer had been given a few times already, with more explanation, in a couple times years ago. – Andrew Barber Nov 05 '14 at 19:27
this is what I needed. I deleted all references with tf command and also with sidekicks but I still needed to remove this cache. thank you, thank you, thank you – GrahamJRoy Nov 23 '16 at 16:59
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Specifically, you can remove the offending workspace's `WorkspaceInfo` entry from `C:\Users\ukcco3jbe\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache\VersionControl.config`. XPath: `/VersionControlServer/Servers/ServerInfo/WorkspaceInfo` – JohnLBevan Nov 24 '16 at 16:26
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\8.0 for vs2019 – Sergio Villalobos Dec 12 '19 at 15:51

score 39 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 24 '15 at 16:31

39

I had a similar issue and to remove the workspace that was causing me a problem, I logged into another machine with TFS client installed and performed the following:

On the File menu, point to Source Control, Advanced, and then click Workspaces....
In the Manage Workspaces dialog box, tick the Show remote packages checkbox.
Under the Name column, select the workspace that you want to remove, and then click Remove.
In the Confirmation dialog box, click OK.

answered Jun 24 '15 at 16:31

TNV

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My workstation was listed twice. Removed the duplicate and it immediately worked. Thanks. – Kyle Hancock Jun 26 '17 at 16:18
This should be marked as the correct answer! – Serj Sagan Sep 28 '21 at 07:15

score 31 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 02 '09 at 16:30

I received this error, which was caused by having two build definitions that pointed to the same source. The issue was that I used a static build directory in the Build Agent.

This forum post describes my issue and resolution exactly: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsbuild/thread/60a4138a-9b28-4c46-bdf4-f9775ce43c3e/

score 28 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 18:21

28

We had the same problem but deleting the workspace's from the TFS server did not work. (I should mention that I grabbed my colleagues VM that was already set up with his credentials.)

For me this worked: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/buckh/archive/2006/09/12/path-is-already-mapped-in-workspace.aspx

I just went into the : ...\Local Settings\Application Data\ made a search for VersionControl.config, opened up the folder that contained this file and deleted all of it's contents.

Previous to that I tried manually editing the file but it continued with the same error message.

I hope this helps.

answered Apr 14 '11 at 18:21

asuciu

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Was helpful for our situation, where we switched servers and the old server didn't exist anymore, but an old machine still had settings for it. – Joel Rondeau Sep 04 '12 at 15:43
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I had to do this too. I deleted the entire `Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Team Foundation` folder and all was well afterwards – Orion Edwards Oct 11 '12 at 20:00
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It is the cache, simply delete the Cache folder(s) – demokritos Nov 03 '15 at 10:49
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I deleted the workspace and the cache folder, but the issue is still there. Maybe jenkins is running under a different user and uses another cache? – ideafixxxer Jun 14 '16 at 14:19
It probably is! There are all sorts of plugins that you can use to clean u your workspace before the actual build starts. If you find the answer for this particular problem, please come back and post it here so that others can benefit from it as well :) – asuciu Jun 17 '16 at 14:28
This solution works after you delete a TFS connection yet it is still complaining that that folder is mapped so you are unable to map to a different connection/project/whatever. – Nov 15 '16 at 16:37
For those who don't know where `...\Local Settings` is, the folder on my Windows Server 2012 box appears to be `%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation`, where `%userprofile%` is the user your agent is running under. – Soren Bjornstad Feb 14 '20 at 14:26

deadlydog · Answer 6 · 2015-09-11T16:13:02.067

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For some reason I was having trouble deleting the workspace from the command-line utility. Luckily I found Team Foundation Sidekicks 2010 (from this post) which is free and provides a GUI for viewing and deleting TFS workspaces, and many more useful TFS features.

edited Sep 11 '15 at 16:13

answered Oct 23 '11 at 03:25

deadlydog

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I strongly suggest anyone that work with TFS to have a look at TFS Sidekicks, because it is free and has a lot of really must-have features. – Alkampfer Jan 30 '12 at 13:55

score 10 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 07 '11 at 20:20

10

I had a similar problem with Visual Studio 2010 complaining about an already-mapped-workspace, but instead of deleting the entire workspace, I used the following from the Visual Studio Command Prompt: "tf workspace PROBLEM_WORKSPACE_NAME". This brought up an "Edit Workspace" dialog. From there I was able to remove the path in question from the "Working Folders" list, which got rid of the error.

answered Nov 07 '11 at 20:20

Mary Hamlin

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Your solution helped me in a similar case. I've created a workspace for the wrong user, so I deleted it and then attempted to create it for the right one, but `tf` complained that the path was associated with another workspace -- the one I deleted. Inspired by your reply, I recreated the workspace for the wrong user, deleted only the association with the path and finally I succeeded in creating the workspace for the right user. – edymtt Oct 29 '12 at 18:42

score 8 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 13 '13 at 12:16

8

the rest was fairly easy.

Simply go to this folder: C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4\Cache and delete all that's in the folder.

answered Aug 13 '13 at 12:16

Mohamad Pahlavan

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score 7 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 06 '14 at 19:26

I was getting an exception telling me that the file was already mapped in another workspace: "The path {File Path} is already mapped in workspace {Workspace Name}."

This workspace was deleted beofre. With the help of friend of mine I found out that TFS save workspace info under the user local settings dir. We found a file named:

VersionControl.config under {User Documents and Settings dir}\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Team Foundation\1.0\Cache. This file contains all the local mapping of TFS. Probably when you use the Map method and don't use: public void DeleteMapping(WorkingFolder mapping); before deleting the workspace the mapping information is not removed from this file which is used by TFS to check if you've alreay mapped a specific path.

To resolve this problem delete all the keys from the config file. Don't delete the file because you'll get it again from the server cache.

This worked for me; I had to remove ALL keys. There were 3 such file so I just edited all 3. NOTE: The directory structure has changed since this answer was written. Also, @Morteza, while I appreciate your answer, it is really too bad that Microsoft didn't come up with an elegant way of doing this. — JosephDoggie, Sep 07 '22 at 20:39

score 6 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 13 '12 at 18:16

Here is what I did (well what I do):

Using TFS Sidekicks clear out the user and server filters so they are blank. This will let you get all workspaces.

Check the build error for the workspace name. In the OPs case it is BuildServer_23. It is different in my environment but basically just match up the error name with the one in the tfs sidekick list.

Click the red x to delete the workspace.

Viola!

score 3 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 30 '13 at 16:49

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If applicable, you can also clone the build definition and change its name. This workded for me.

answered Oct 30 '13 at 16:49

Stinky Towel

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Thanks for this. The combination of deleting the cache folder and (re)-cloning my build definition fixed it for me. – HerbalMart Nov 13 '14 at 10:55

score 3 · Answer 12 · answered Nov 08 '16 at 17:17

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I tried all the following solutions such as :

Use sidekicks to delete WS.
Use tf commands to delete remote server workspaces.
Delete the TFS cache folder.

The following worked for me:

tf workspaces /remove:*

answered Nov 08 '16 at 17:17

AyeVeeKay

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score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Aug 08 '14 at 04:45

While trying to 'Get latest version' of a project which I had previously mapped to a local directory and then deleted, I saw this same error message. First I tried the SideKick tool and then the Visual Studio 2010 command prompt, both of which told me I had no workspaces mapped.

Next I searched for 'VersionControl.config' within c:/users/myuser/appdata, and deleted the 4 references it found. I re-opened Visual Studio and I was able to re-map the project, no more error!

score 2 · Answer 14 · answered Sep 04 '14 at 15:48

2

Simplest way to do this is to go to your AppData and delete the TFS cache (depending on the version 3.0 or 4.0)

C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache or C:\Users{UserName}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4.0\Cache

answered Sep 04 '14 at 15:48

user2048576

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After doing the workspaces clean up with VS and TFS sidekick tool, this manual approach of deleting the cache worked for me. Thank you! – espaciomore Jul 23 '16 at 15:52

score 2 · Answer 15 · answered Aug 30 '16 at 21:57

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TDN's solution worked for me when I was having the same issue. The Build server created workspaces under my account. Checking this box allowed me to see and delete them.

answered Aug 30 '16 at 21:57

Joe

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score 2 · Answer 16 · answered Mar 09 '17 at 18:07

I got same issue in Visual Studio 2017 and TFS 2017. DefaultCollection must be mapped first to you local path. Somehow this step was skipped and I got only MyFirstProject mapped.

All you need to do is:
- 1. Go to your TFS web page and remove the project from the server.

- 2. Remove the project from your local "Worksapces"

- 3. Go to "Manage Connections" which will refresh your Home page in TeamExplorer.

- 4. You will get Configuration page which will allow you to setup root path to your DefaultCollection.

- 5. You should get message that it been done successfully. Now you can create your project.

It's important to map root of your collection to your workspace first and then map a new project.

score 2 · Answer 17 · answered Aug 23 '17 at 16:34

My issue was related to using multiple accounts. This is how I was able to switch accounts.

Open Team Explorer

From the big drop down menu near the top of the pane...

Navigate to: Projects and my Teams>Manage Connections

Navigate to: Manage Connections>Connect to Team Project

Use the "Switch User" link to switch accounts.

Now the workspace names will match the chosen account.

score 2 · Answer 18 · answered Mar 24 '20 at 08:51

I couldn't get any other solution to work.

I had a new account created and the old account no longer had permissions (both on same machine).

I tried: 1) Deleting the workspace (couldn't see in VS with or without remote workspaces checked) 2) Deleting from the command line 3) New owner command 4) Deleting the cache

So I simply opened VS as admin and mapped to a different folder.

score 2 · Answer 19 · answered Aug 29 '20 at 09:19

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Deleting the workspace and cache was not sufficient for me. I had to also restart the "Visual Studio Team Foundation Build Service Host" service.

answered Aug 29 '20 at 09:19

Jari Kulmala

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Lionel Orellana · Answer 20 · 2011-07-11T03:09:34.783

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If you don't have permissions on the server to delete other people's workspaces, you can just change the name of the build definition. TFS will create a new workspace and map it to "C:\Build\ProductReleases\new build name here\Sources".

edited Jul 11 '11 at 03:09

answered Jul 08 '11 at 05:37

Lionel Orellana

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score 2 · Answer 21 · answered Dec 10 '21 at 23:45

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Go to the Source Control Explorer
In the toolbar there is a dropdown list of Workspaces.
Click the dropdown and go to workspaces.
Remove the unwanted workspace.
Map to your local.

answered Dec 10 '21 at 23:45

Demodave

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score 1 · Answer 22 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 21:42

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I changed

Build Definition -> Workspace -> Build Agent Folder

from

c:\some\path

to

$(SourceDir)

and it fixed the issue.

answered Jan 25 '13 at 21:42

abatishchev

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score 1 · Answer 23 · answered Nov 28 '18 at 20:01

I had this issue with this with Azure DevOps automated builds in an on-prem TFS build agent. Removing the workspace using TFS Sidekicks did not work. And tf.exe could not even find the workspace to delete it.

This solution should work for TFS 2017, TFS 2018, Azure DevOps, and possibly other versions:

Take note of the workspace GUID in the error message.
On the machine where the build is taking place, navigate to: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\ (where %USERPROFILE% belongs to the user that triggered the build).
Search for and remove all instances of the workspace GUID under that directory. There will likely be a folder in a 'cache' directory, as well as entries in 'LocationServerMap.xml' and 'LocalItemExclusions.config'. Remove them all.

That worked in my circumstance.

score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Feb 23 '19 at 07:39

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Simply delete the workspace:

workspace /delete "the-workspace-name"

answered Feb 23 '19 at 07:39

Majid

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Team Build Error: The Path ... is already mapped to workspace

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