I’ve recently banged my head against a simple, yet annoying problem with Team Build and the way build result files are published to the so-called drop location. In my case, this location is a share on our file server. Knowingly, the build service executes under a TFSBUILD account which I have given Co-Owner permission level at the share.
Everything builds and results are published, yet all builds are only partially successful. Digging around the somewhat unmanageable BuildLog.txt file I see that Test results from MSTest is published via a call to http://tfs:8080/Build/v1.0/PublishTestResultsBuildService2.asmx which subsequently fails with this error:
The results directory “\\fileserver\tfsbuilds\BuildFolder.1\TestResults” could not be created for publishing.
The solution is quite simple. Since the actual publishing of test results is done by the PublishTestResultsBuildService2 service, executing under the TFSSERVICE account, we also need to give that account Co-Owner permissions to the drop location share.
Obvious? I think not 
