What is going wrong when Visual Studio tells me "xcopy exited with code 4"

Question

I'm not very familiar with post-build events, so I'm a little confused as to what's going wrong with my program. When compiling in visual studio 2010, I get the following:

The command "xcopy C:\Users\Me\Path\Foo.bar\Library\dsoframer.ocx C:\Users\Me\Path\Foo.bar\bin\Debug\ /Y /E /D
xcopy C:\Users\Me\Path\Foo.bar\ApplicationFiles C:\Users\Me\Path\Foo.bar\bin\Debug\ /Y /E /D
xcopy C:\Users\Me\Path\url\ C:\Users\Me\Path\Foo.bar\bin\Debug\ /Y /E /D
rmdir /S /Q C:\Users\Me\Path\Foo.bar\bin\Debug\.gwt-tmp" exited with code 4.

The program appears to run fine, despite this error, but I don't want to just ignore this issue and hope nothing bad happens. Strangely, this line started out as only a single command (the first xcopy) but as I continued to compile the project (fixing other problems, mostly references) the error message expanded larger and larger. Any idea what could be going on?

Edit: Here are the postbuild events that seem to be failing --

xcopy $(ProjectDir)Library\dsoframer.ocx $(TargetDir) /Y /E /D
xcopy $(ProjectDir)ApplicationFiles $(TargetDir) /Y /E /D
xcopy $(SolutionDir)com.myUrl.gwt\www $(TargetDir) /Y /E /D
rmdir /S /Q $(TargetDir).gwt-tmp

Apart from answers below, also make sure to open VS with `Administrator privileges`. Copy to specific locations require admin rights. — Nikhil Agrawal, Jul 28 '16 at 09:59
Possible duplicate of [Command copy exited with code 4 when building - Visual Studio restart solves it](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3861474/command-copy-exited-with-code-4-when-building-visual-studio-restart-solves-it) — Florian Winter, Apr 30 '19 at 07:10

score 197 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 31 '19 at 07:12

197

Xcopy exit code 4 means "Initialization error occurred. There is not enough memory or disk space, or you entered an invalid drive name or invalid syntax on the command line."

It looks like Visual Studio is supplying invalid arguments to xcopy. Check your post-build event command via Project > Right Click > Properties > Build Events > Post Build Event.

Note that if the $(ProjectDir) or similar macro terms have spaces in the resulting paths when expanded, then they will need to be wrapped in double quotes. For example:

xcopy "$(ProjectDir)Library\dsoframer.ocx" "$(TargetDir)" /Y /E /D1

edited Aug 31 '19 at 07:12

software_writer

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answered Apr 11 '11 at 19:40

Mark Cidade

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As I said, I don't know much about post-build event scripts (and I didn't write these); where do I find this? – Raven Dreamer Apr 11 '11 at 19:45
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Go to project Properties > Build Events – Mark Cidade Apr 11 '11 at 19:48
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Try wrapping each command with double quotes (`"command args"`). – Grant Thomas Apr 11 '11 at 19:48
@Mark Cidade - I don't seem to have "Build Events" anywhere. Listed Common Properties: "Startup Project; Project Dependencies; Debug Source Files; Code Analysis Settings". Listed Configuration Properties: "configuration". – Raven Dreamer Apr 11 '11 at 19:53
@MarkCidade: Hmm, I remember a simple manipulation was needed to get this working once. – Grant Thomas Apr 11 '11 at 19:53
@Raven you're looking at the Solution properties. Right click on the C# project. – Mark Cidade Apr 11 '11 at 19:55
@Mark - updated the OP with the failing scripts. Can you see a problem with them? – Raven Dreamer Apr 11 '11 at 20:03
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@RavenDreamer: If the `$(ProjectDir)` (and/or similar) has spaces in the expanded path, then it'll need to be wrapped in quotes. For example: `xcopy "$(ProjectDir)Library\dsoframer.ocx" "$(TargetDir)" /Y /E /D1` – Grant Thomas Apr 11 '11 at 20:08
@MarkCidade: Hope you don't mind me editing your answer, I just felt it ought to be actually _in_ the answer. @RavenDreamer: Glad you're sorted. – Grant Thomas Apr 11 '11 at 20:19
@Mark Cidade. The Right solution for the given problem ! Thanks ! – Hasan Fahim May 17 '12 at 07:27
+1 Thank you. I'm kinda sad that I just paid over 700 dollars for VS pro and there isn't a simple menu option (that I've found, yet) to just do this for me. – Sep 14 '14 at 05:44
If your copying into a read only directory you will also error – TheoretiCAL Oct 09 '15 at 18:59
@MarkCidade: One more thing to add is to open VS with Admin rights. – Nikhil Agrawal Jul 28 '16 at 09:59
What helped me was after looking at the build events noticing that the wrong output folder for the build config was selected. If you build in debug/release/test/dev, etc make sure that folder exists in your folder hierarchy. – Nathan Oct 13 '21 at 16:13

Felice Pollano · Answer 2 · 2012-10-14T06:24:30.237

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Switch the watch tab to the "ouput" and look for the xcopy command. Sometimes here you find some more message ( the actual xcopy output ) that could help you to solve the issue. If you don't see the output tab, use View-Output menu to show it.

edited Oct 14 '12 at 06:24

answered Apr 11 '11 at 19:54

Felice Pollano

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I was focused on checking the build tab yet in the "output" tab was clearly telling me what the error was about. My script was referencing a folder that doesn't exist, had to create it and all went well – crakama Feb 10 '22 at 18:19

score 35 · Answer 3 · answered May 16 '13 at 08:23

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I addition to the accepted answer, the error can also occur when the destination folder is read-only (Common when using TFS)

answered May 16 '13 at 08:23

Pieter

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And something you can see if you switch to the output window as @FelicePollano mentioned below. – Jedidja Jul 04 '13 at 12:01

score 26 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 16 '14 at 06:21

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If source file not found xcopy returns error code 4 also.

answered Jan 16 '14 at 06:21

Der_Meister

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this was my case. i used `$(TargetDir)` which ends with `Release\ `. Using `$(ProjectDir)\bin\Release` without the trailing `\\ ` worked for me – highboi Jan 05 '17 at 18:47
I ran into this issue when I got a new laptop and installed VS 2022. On VS 2019, there was no error. I removed the trailing \ from the xcopy path and it worked. – dashrader Sep 02 '22 at 19:10
This happened to me because the output folder for Debug and Release were different. – Joe Mayo Mar 16 '23 at 16:26

martijn · Answer 5 · 2018-09-28T13:28:49.333

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I received the 'exited with code 4' error when the xcopy command tried to overwrite a readonly file. I managed to solve this problem by adding /R to the xcopy command. The /R indicates read only files should be overwritten

old command:

XCOPY /E /Y "$(ProjectDir)source file" "destination"

new command

XCOPY /E /Y /R "$(ProjectDir)source file" "destination"

edited Sep 28 '18 at 13:28

answered Mar 24 '16 at 11:48

martijn

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thank you, as indeed I had to go to the directory > properties and uncheck readonly. didn't know the /R switch. thanks! – juFo Jun 08 '21 at 07:19

score 8 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:03

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As other answers explain, exit code 4 may have many causes.

I noticed a case, where resulting path names exceeded the maximum allowed length (just like here).

I have replaced xcopy by robocopy for the affected post build event; robocopy seems to handle paths slightly different and was able to complete the copy task that xcopy was unable to handle.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:03

Community

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answered Feb 02 '14 at 11:32

CodeFox

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score 5 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 11 '11 at 19:40

It means:

Initialization error occurred. There is not enough memory or disk space, or you entered an invalid drive name or invalid syntax on the command line.

So basically it could be just about anything haha...try running the command one at a time from the command prompt to figure out which part of which command is giving you trouble.

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 13 '20 at 08:57

This error is due to if there is white spaces where your repo is copied. E.g. my project is copied in below location c://projects/My rest project then you can see the white spaces there, if you change your repo path to below, it should work c://projects/myrestproject

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 15 '15 at 14:23

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I got this along with the message

Invalid drive specification

when copying to a network share without specifying the drive name, e.g.

xcopy . \\localhost

where

xcopy . \\localhost\share

was expected

answered Sep 15 '15 at 14:23

Thomas Weller

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score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 06 '20 at 05:58

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This can also come if the target folder is used by some other processes. Close all the programs which may use the target folder and try.

You may use resource monitor(windows tool) to check the processes which uses your target folder.

This worked for me!.

answered Jul 06 '20 at 05:58

Pravinkumar

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In my case it was because a previous run was still hanging somewhere in the background...Thx – ephraim Dec 27 '21 at 11:32

score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 13 '17 at 20:38

I ran across this issue, so I ran the xcopy command from the command line and it said:

File creation error - The requested operation cannot be performed on a file with
 a user-mapped section open.

It was actually Visual Studio holding onto something. I just restarted Visual Studio and it worked.

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 31 '16 at 06:40

In my case the issue was due to incorrect build order. One project had an xcopy command on post-build events to copy files from bin folder to another folder. But because of incorrect dependencies new files were getting created in bin folder while xcopy is in progress.

In VS right click on the project where you have post-build events. Go to Build Dependencies > Project Dependencies and make sure its correct. Verify the project build order(next tab to dependencies) as well.

score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 11 '18 at 16:07

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I had the same problem. You could also check which way the slash is pointing. For me it worked to use backslash, instead of forward slash. Example

xcopy /s /y "C:\SFML\bin\*.dll" "$(OutDir)"

Instead of:

xcopy /s /y "C:/SFML/bin/*.dll" "$(OutDir)"

answered Dec 11 '18 at 16:07

Marc Dirven

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Jan 15 '19 at 18:31

I had a post build command that worked just fine before I did an update on VS 2017. It turned out that the SDK tools updated and were under a new path so it couldn't find the tool I was using to sign my assemblies.

This changed from this....

call "%VS140COMNTOOLS%vsvars32"
    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6 Tools\x64\sn.exe" -Ra "$(TargetPath)" "$(ProjectDir)Key.snk"

To This...

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6.1 Tools\x64\sn.exe" -Ra "$(TargetPath)" "$(ProjectDir)Key.snk"

Very subtle but breaking change, so check your paths after an update if you see this error.

score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Jan 16 '19 at 18:55

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Another thing to watch out for is double backslashes, since xcopy does not tolerate them in the input path parameter (but it does tolerate them in the output path...).

answered Jan 16 '19 at 18:55

Elaskanator

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score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 04 '19 at 07:41

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If any other solution is in the debug mode then first stop them all and after that restart the visual studio. It worked for me.

answered Oct 04 '19 at 07:41

Savan Gadhiya

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What is going wrong when Visual Studio tells me "xcopy exited with code 4"

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