SonarCloud warning "Could not determine a suitable project base directory."

aee · July 14, 2022, 11:36pm

I’ve just registered for the 14-day trial for SonarCloud and cannot get past the initial setup of building from a GitHub Action.

My code is a .NET 6 C# solution, with a Web API and several Azure Functions.

I am using the following command in the GitHub Action template provided by SonarCloud for the build step:

dotnet build MySolution.sln

But I am getting several warnings, and finally an error at the end indicating “Generation of the sonar-properties file failed. Unable to complete the analysis.”, which I think trace back to: “Could not determine a suitable project base directory.”

However in case there is more going on that I don’t understand, here are some snippets of the messages:

WARNING: The following projects do not have a valid ProjectGuid and were not built using a valid solution (.sln) thus will be skipped from analysis...
C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\ptkwfgfq.hz1\WorkerExtensions.csproj, C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\nlombzhz.ucn\WorkerExtensions.csproj
WARNING: Duplicate ProjectGuid: "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000". The project will not be analyzed. Project file: "c:\users\runneradmin\appdata\local\temp\ptkwfgfq.hz1\workerextensions.csproj"
WARNING: Duplicate ProjectGuid: "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000". The project will not be analyzed. Project file: "c:\users\runneradmin\appdata\local\temp\nlombzhz.ucn\workerextensions.csproj"
WARNING: Could not determine a suitable project base directory. Using the fallback D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out . Make sure that all dependencies of your project are available on your filesystem, as this fallback may lead to no result being show after the analysis.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
... several of these for what appears to be every file ...
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
WARNING: File 'D:\a\[solutionpath]\[somefile].cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\[solutionpath]
No analysable projects were found. SonarCloud analysis will not be performed. Check the build summary report for details.
Generation of the sonar-properties file failed. Unable to complete the analysis.
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

I’m aware that currently you either need to build with a Solution file or otherwise add ProjectGuids to every project to get rid of the ProjectGuid issues, hence I am building with the Solution file. The two “WorkerExtension.csproj” warnings I believe come from auto-generated projects from the Microsoft Azure Function projects (we have two of them).

I tried searching for the warning “Could not determine a suitable project base directory.” as it seems to relate to a lot of the files being skipped for analysis, which I assume means nothing gets analyzed. However I only found this one post: No analysable projects were found. SonarQube analysis will not be performed. Check the build summary report for details which was never resolved.

Any ideas?

Edit:
I also tried doing a dotnet restore before the dotnet build solution.sln but that does not help either.

I should note that I do see a lot of the SonarAnalyzer warnings as the project builds, so it seems that the scan is happening? Just the results are not being picked up?

aee · July 14, 2022, 11:53pm

In case it is relevant, this is the GitHub Action YAML:

name: SonarCloud Build
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - dev-code-scanning
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize, reopened]
jobs:
  build:
    name: Build
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
      - name: Set up JDK 11
        uses: actions/setup-java@v1
        with:
          java-version: 1.11
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0  # Shallow clones should be disabled for a better relevancy of analysis
      - name: Cache SonarCloud packages
        uses: actions/cache@v1
        with:
          path: ~\sonar\cache
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-sonar
          restore-keys: ${{ runner.os }}-sonar
      - name: Cache SonarCloud scanner
        id: cache-sonar-scanner
        uses: actions/cache@v1
        with:
          path: .\.sonar\scanner
          key: ${{ runner.os }}-sonar-scanner
          restore-keys: ${{ runner.os }}-sonar-scanner
      - name: Install SonarCloud scanner
        if: steps.cache-sonar-scanner.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
        shell: powershell
        run: |
          New-Item -Path .\.sonar\scanner -ItemType Directory
          dotnet tool update dotnet-sonarscanner --tool-path .\.sonar\scanner
      - name: Build and analyze
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}  # Needed to get PR information, if any
          SONAR_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}
        shell: powershell
        run: |
          .\.sonar\scanner\dotnet-sonarscanner begin /k:"[projectname]" /o:"[organizationname]" /d:sonar.login="${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}" /d:sonar.host.url="https://sonarcloud.io"
          dotnet restore
          dotnet build [solutionname].sln
          .\.sonar\scanner\dotnet-sonarscanner end /d:sonar.login="${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}"

aee · July 15, 2022, 12:12am

Also for what it’s worth, I was able to reproduce this without my own code by doing the following:

Use Visual Studio 2022 to create a new .NET 6, Isolated-Process Azure Function. The basic HTTP-trigger one is fine.
Create a new GitHub repo and commit the solution and project and template code files as-is (i.e. commit the files the project template produces as-is, make no code changes).
Setup a GitHub Action using the provided build.yml template in SonarCloud using dotnet build [solutionname].sln as the build command.

This produces:

SonarScanner for MSBuild 5.7.2
Using the .NET Core version of the Scanner for MSBuild
Pre-processing started.
Preparing working directories...
00:03:50.931  Updating build integration targets...
00:03:51.494  Fetching analysis configuration settings...
00:03:52.33  Provisioning analyzer assemblies for cs...
00:03:52.331  Installing required Roslyn analyzers...
00:03:53.383  Provisioning analyzer assemblies for vbnet...
00:03:53.383  Installing required Roslyn analyzers...
00:03:53.417  Pre-processing succeeded.
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 17.2.0+41abc5629 for .NET
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
 Determining projects to restore...
 Restored D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning.csproj (in 9.91 sec).
 AzFuncForCodeScanning -> D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\bin\Debug\net6.0\AzFuncForCodeScanning.dll
 Sonar: (AzFuncForCodeScanning.csproj) Project processed successfully
 Determining projects to restore...
 Restored C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\WorkerExtensions.csproj (in 48.14 sec).
 WorkerExtensions -> C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\buildout\Microsoft.Azure.Functions.Worker.Extensions.dll
D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\bin\targets\SonarQube.Integration.targets(369,5): warning : The project does not have a valid ProjectGuid. Analysis results for this project will not be uploaded. Project file: C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\WorkerExtensions.csproj [C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\WorkerExtensions.csproj]
 Sonar: (WorkerExtensions.csproj) Project processed successfully
00:05:06.382  No analysable projects were found. SonarCloud analysis will not be performed. Check the build summary report for details.
Build succeeded.
D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\bin\targets\SonarQube.Integration.targets(369,5): warning : The project does not have a valid ProjectGuid. Analysis results for this project will not be uploaded. Project file: C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\WorkerExtensions.csproj [C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\WorkerExtensions.csproj]
   1 Warning(s)
   0 Error(s)
Time Elapsed 00:01:12.45
SonarScanner for MSBuild 5.7.2
Using the .NET Core version of the Scanner for MSBuild
Post-processing started.
00:05:06.318  00:05:06.318  WARNING: The following projects do not have a valid ProjectGuid and were not built using a valid solution (.sln) thus will be skipped from analysis...
C:\Users\runneradmin\AppData\Local\Temp\djzrn452.xuj\WorkerExtensions.csproj
00:05:06.363  00:05:06.363  WARNING: Could not determine a suitable project base directory. Using the fallback D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out . Make sure that all dependencies of your project are available on your filesystem, as this fallback may lead to no result being show after the analysis.
00:05:06.381  00:05:06.381  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\Function1.cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.381  00:05:06.381  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\Program.cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.381  00:05:06.381  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\obj\Debug\net6.0\AzFuncForCodeScanning.GlobalUsings.g.cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.381  00:05:06.381  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\obj\Debug\net6.0\.NETCoreApp,Version=v6.0.AssemblyAttributes.cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.381  00:05:06.381  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\obj\Debug\net6.0\AzFuncForCodeScanning.AssemblyInfo.cs' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.381  00:05:06.381  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.gitignore' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.382  00:05:06.382  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\host.json' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.382  00:05:06.382  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\Properties\launchSettings.json' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.382  00:05:06.382  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\Properties\serviceDependencies.json' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.382  00:05:06.382  WARNING: File 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\Properties\serviceDependencies.local.json' is not located under the root directory 'D:\a\AzFuncForCodeScanning\AzFuncForCodeScanning\.sonarqube\out' and will not be analyzed.
00:05:06.382  Generation of the sonar-properties file failed. Unable to complete the analysis.
00:05:06.387  Post-processing failed. Exit code: 1
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

aee · July 15, 2022, 7:22pm

Ok I got a little further.

I do see this in the “Post Cache SonarCloud packages” step, does this indicate anything problematic?

Post job cleanup.
C:\Windows\System32\tar.exe -cz -f D:\a\_temp\46417b3a-406c-4f4f-92c0-333ad59c6d75\cache.tgz -C C:\Users\runneradmin\sonar\cache .
tar.exe: could not chdir to 'C:\Users\runneradmin\sonar\cache'
Warning: Tar failed with error: The process 'C:\Windows\System32\tar.exe' failed with exit code 1. Ensure BSD tar is installed and on the PATH.

Outside of that, to fix the build issue I had, it seems I need to manually specify the sonar.projectBaseDir setting for the dotnet-sonarscanner begin command. It should be set to the location where the source code gets checked-out to. I’m not sure why it isn’t picked up by default.

However for now I opted to do something like this in the “Build and analyze” step:

...
$projectBaseDir = (Get-Location).Path
.\.sonar\scanner\dotnet-sonarscanner begin /k:"[projectkey]" /o:"[organization]" /d:sonar.login="${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}" /d:sonar.host.url="https://sonarcloud.io" /d:sonar.projectBaseDir="$projectBaseDir"
dotnet restore
dotnet build [solutionname].sln
.\.sonar\scanner\dotnet-sonarscanner end /d:sonar.login="${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}"
...

Essentially, I grab the current directory and pass that to the projectBaseDir setting.

Not sure why something like this isn’t at least pointed out directly in the SonarCloud GitHub Action template, as it doesn’t provide a great first time experience.

costin.zaharia · July 29, 2022, 10:04am

Hi @aee, thanks for letting us know.

I was able to reproduce the scenario and created an issue on our side. You can follow the progress here: When analyzing azure functions project, end step fails with `Generation of the sonar-properties file failed. Unable to complete the analysis.` · Issue #1294 · SonarSource/sonar-scanner-msbuild · GitHub.

Andrei_Epure · August 24, 2022, 8:28am

Hello @aee

We’ve released the Scanner for .NET 5.8.0.52797 which will unblock this scenario.

You still need to provide sonar.projectBaseDir.

system · August 31, 2022, 8:32am

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

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SonarCloud warning "Could not determine a suitable project base directory."

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