The "Exec" task needs a command to execute, the poor thing

on May 24th, 2007 at 11:57am visual-studio , visual-studio-2005 86 responses

Here's a strange error message.

I was trying to build a project in VS2005, and got this instead of a successful build:

The "Exec" task needs a command to execute.

After pooling out a few hairs, I remembers that I recently have edited the pre-build actions for this project.

Looking this up, I found that I left a spare newline at the end of the pre-build script. So VS2005 sent msbuild an order to run an empty command.

Now I wonder, had the VS2005 guys have ever heard of StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries?

They could've easily ignore empty lines, or better yet, issue a warning for that kinda stuff.

The Ron on June 5th, 2007 at 12:01pm

Nice... It saved me a couple hairs on the ole head.Damn stray NEWLINEs. ;-)

Omar on June 21st, 2007 at 6:15pm

Thanks Man, I started to pull my hair as well, put that was a quick fix.

BUbba Ole on June 27th, 2007 at 4:47pm

Someone needs to shake up things up there. Sounds like the evil QA folks again!Just googling and I found this. Thanks man!

Ken Egozi on June 27th, 2007 at 6:19pm

supro cool.We have a saying in Hebrew, that when a problem of an individual becomes public domain, it becomes half-way into a comfort.Sorry to hear more people had that problem though, cuz it is of the really annoying kind.

Craig on November 21st, 2007 at 2:13am

Awsome :) never would have found that issue.. thanks google and thanks to this forum.

Jack on November 27th, 2007 at 4:07pm

OOPS! this is cute and great tips! It did exactly happen to me just now!Thanks for the sharing.

Jamie on December 5th, 2007 at 4:31pm

Cheers buddy, you just saved me destroying all my kernel logic trying to find that one!!!! thnxs

Ken Egozi on December 6th, 2007 at 9:24am

Glad to have helped.Now be a dear and Kick it/digg it/Send Paypal/Use my amazon bookstore/whatever just kidding.you don't have to.but I do know your IP, so I'd track you down if you won't.kidding, again.or am I?

Mahmoud on January 3rd, 2008 at 11:44am

that was great easy solution, I forgot that a new line in the pre-Build event was added when i edited the script code.

Jens Hofmann on February 13th, 2008 at 8:59am

Thanks a lot for this hint, had the same problem 1 minute ago. It's really bad that this issue still exists in VS 2008 :(

krish on February 14th, 2008 at 6:07pm

Gr8. Thanks for saving my thinning hair.

d on March 6th, 2008 at 12:22pm

thanks a bunch saved me from going to the barber..hehehehe...thanks:)

Coderess on March 19th, 2008 at 6:01pm

You saved me quite a headache here... Can't believe this is still an issue in VS 2008

DA MAN on March 19th, 2008 at 8:44pm

Thanks, it just happened to me in VS express!. Delete it the newline and my project built again. Cheers.

Prabin Varma on April 10th, 2008 at 3:00pm

Thanks Ken. Saved me a lot of time.

Ayan on April 15th, 2008 at 2:13am

THANKS A TON.....

Anunay on May 13th, 2008 at 1:42am

Thanks dude ! This should be added to MSDN

Pastiche on May 19th, 2008 at 2:56pm

Thanks! This was the first post I checked - problem solved in about 20 seconds!

sheriff on May 26th, 2008 at 9:46pm

got to thank you for that one, so thank you!

EWilan on June 10th, 2008 at 9:58pm

Nice find! Apparently, this also happens in post-build events in VS2008.

Arthur on June 12th, 2008 at 2:52am

More hair saved today! ;-) Thanks!

dragosh on June 17th, 2008 at 11:38am

You save my day!!!Thanks

Rahul Shukla on June 23rd, 2008 at 9:04am

Thanks a ton dude ... u saved my lot of time :)

Amir Simantov on August 21st, 2008 at 8:13am

Ken the Canon!

Ken Egozi on August 21st, 2008 at 5:48pm

@Amir - now that's a first ... :)

Nicky on September 26th, 2008 at 10:57am

Cheers for this. Got this solved this in 30 seconds thanks to your post.

Simon on November 6th, 2008 at 10:38am

Thanks for not keeping such a great discovery to yourself. Saved a lot of time and pain.

Ramin Tarhandeh on November 15th, 2008 at 8:08am

Thanks a lotit saved me the few hours

richard on November 17th, 2008 at 1:35pm

thanks

sathish on November 22nd, 2008 at 4:06am

thanks a lot..saved hell of time..

Dave on December 5th, 2008 at 1:46pm

Thank you!

Rod on December 12th, 2008 at 12:00am

THANKS! Saved me a ton of time. Never would have thought to look there until I was bald!

Sandip Pradhan on December 17th, 2008 at 3:59am

Thanks, I could fix it in 10 seconds.

Ethan on December 17th, 2008 at 8:01pm

This helped me too, thanks!

John on December 19th, 2008 at 7:13pm

You just saved me from a world of hurt! Thank you!

praveen hooda on December 24th, 2008 at 10:24am

Thanks a lot dude it saved a lot of time and frustration.

Phil Shelton on January 10th, 2009 at 8:55pm

Thanks - it was late and I never noticed that spare line!

Dmitry on January 11th, 2009 at 1:29pm

Heh, till now( VS 2008 SP1) still not fixed )

cox on February 1st, 2009 at 5:26pm

Thanks.

Elad on February 19th, 2009 at 10:51am

Thanks! you sure did saved me a lot of time

Pedro on February 20th, 2009 at 12:21pm

what a stupid bug...Thanks.

Xie on February 20th, 2009 at 9:28pm

Thanks

Gabi on February 25th, 2009 at 5:49pm

I left a space line in Post-build. It's fixed after clean empty lines. Great Thanks!

Kofi A on March 2nd, 2009 at 1:32pm

Saved a few hairs too. Thanks man...

Mohan on March 18th, 2009 at 7:15pm

Thanks buddy

Ken Egozi on March 19th, 2009 at 5:51am

@Nicky, @Simon, @Ramin, @richard, @sathish, @Dave, @Rod, @Sandip, @Ethan, @John, @praveen, @Phil, @Dmitry, @cox, @Elad, @Pedro, @Xie, @Gabi, @Kofi, @Mohan (did I miss anyone?) := you're more than welcome :)

Mark Woodlief on March 23rd, 2009 at 1:35pm

Thanks!!!!!! Was going nuts on this till I found your post!!!

JRS on March 26th, 2009 at 5:17pm

Thanks...you saved me a lot of time with this post. I was going bonkers on this one!!!!!

Jason Jakob on April 1st, 2009 at 2:40pm

I accidently clicked the "Sign" icon just under the File menu in VS2005 and quickly clicked "Unsign" again to fix. This left a Post build new line. broke compilation. Thanks a bundle!

Vid on April 6th, 2009 at 9:50pm

Thanks,This helped me too!

m42 on April 25th, 2009 at 7:48am

big problem easy soluitionThanks!

Amin Sayed on June 24th, 2009 at 4:48am

Really good one... thanks man!!!

Neelima Dommeti on July 15th, 2009 at 3:43am

Thanks a Lot!!

juan agui on July 16th, 2009 at 3:04am

Thanks!

miro on July 20th, 2009 at 6:36am

Thank you , I spare my hairs :-)

Praveena on July 31st, 2009 at 8:29am

Thanks u saved my Job.. :)

Faisal Raza on August 5th, 2009 at 4:37am

gear post and great solution, :D

Alan Yost on August 18th, 2009 at 10:19am

Yep - saved me. Thanks google - and thanks for your contribution!Cheers.

danteprax on September 16th, 2009 at 6:11pm

Very useful, only the experience gives it knowledge.....Thks a lot.

Don on September 23rd, 2009 at 10:48am

Tons of thanks to you!!! You saved my valuable time to quick fix it.

haider on October 20th, 2009 at 5:09pm

yes you saved my hairs too :)

Stan on October 22nd, 2009 at 6:18pm

The "Exec" task needs a command to execute, the poor thing-- now that's funny

Thao on November 16th, 2009 at 5:51pm

Same here, thanks for the tip! I suspected it was the editing I did on the post-build event but didn't think it was because of the blank spaces after I deleted all the text! Removing it fixed it!

Joyce on November 19th, 2009 at 4:01pm

thanks for the tip...i was starting to freak, but you saved me :)

Jon on November 25th, 2009 at 6:50am

Saved me a lot of time, great post!

Renu on December 1st, 2009 at 5:55am

Thank you. You saved my time.

Pedro Dias on December 9th, 2009 at 4:58pm

Thanks a lot

Kevin on December 25th, 2009 at 10:08pm

Nothing improved in vs 2008. I run into the same problem today but managed to found this. Thanks, Man. Good work.

Fahad Shaikh on January 20th, 2010 at 3:08am

Thanks buddy. It saved me a lot of trouble. Things like this should be posted and shared. Thanks a lot.

Praveen on February 13th, 2010 at 4:53am

Thanks a lot Ken. Saved lotta time for me :)

Richie on February 19th, 2010 at 10:54am

Another thank you! Problem solved.

James on March 3rd, 2010 at 5:52pm

Saved me, too! Thank you for posting this!

THANKS on April 3rd, 2010 at 12:49pm

amazing post. you saved me hours of debugging.from reading all the comments, shall we call you: The Savior? :D

Chris on April 27th, 2010 at 1:02pm

You really made my day! Thanx

Developer on May 20th, 2010 at 9:00pm

Thanks....Really Really helpful...This needs to be posted on MSDN

Orlit Tanenbaumowitz on May 16th, 2010 at 9:00pm

Can you believe that this is still in VS2010?Amazing.Thanks.

Geoff on May 13th, 2010 at 9:00pm

Thanks! Saved me a lot of grief. Had this happen to me in the VS2008 Post-build event after clicking on Sign and then Unsign after remembering that I didn't need to sign after all.

on April 8th, 2011 at 7:49am

Thankyou It saved me a lot of time

Kevin on April 20th, 2011 at 1:53pm

Thanks for the info - I ran into the same problem as everyone else.

David Glaubman on June 4th, 2011 at 12:57am

Thanks, as well. This still lives in VS2010 SP1!

David Muscat on September 9th, 2011 at 2:08am

Thanks...saved me some time

Ashish on September 15th, 2011 at 6:53am

Thanks so much man........it really saved me a lot of time....:)

kannan on September 26th, 2011 at 5:31pm

Thanks a lot ! I got this error, searched in google, stumbled on to this page, FIXED !

Jon Swoveland on May 25th, 2012 at 9:29pm

Yeah-you!!! Boooo MS!!! Got this in VS 2010...still not fixed!!!

shiran on August 8th, 2012 at 5:52am

thank you! it helped me out!!

The "Exec" task needs a command to execute, the poor thing

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The "Exec" task needs a command to execute, the poor thing