MSTest "Specified cast is not valid"

Question

Hello,
I am trying to run our tests with the command prompt via MSTest.exe. The tests run fine from within VS, but I get this error from the command prompt.

MSTest /testmetadata:C:\myProject\project.vsmdi
...
Starting execution...
Specified cast is not valid.

We have 800 total tests, 300 ignored, 5 projects. Each individual project runs fine from the command line using "/testcontainer".

Some notes:
1 - I am running VS Team Edition for Software Dev.
2 - I am using the *.vsdmi file created from VS. It works fine on smaller tutorial projects.
3 - I saw this post to make sure that each project has at least 1 test:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=162564&SiteID=1

I still get the "Specified cast is not valid" error. Does anyone know what else could be causing it?

Thanks,
Tim

Answer 1

Tim
Have you tried adding a /test or /testlist to your command line. The MSDN docs for MSTest.exe command line recommend that that when you use the /testmetadata option that you indicate specific tests to run by using the /test option or the /testlist option, or both.

Thanks
Brian [MSFT]
Microsoft Developer Support
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Answer 2

Thanks for the email. I'm making the tests with "Team Edition for Software Dev", so I don't have the Test Manager window to create the testLists. I'll just make a separate /testcontainer for each of my 5 projects. That works.

Thanks,
Tim

Answer 3

How do you create a testlist from the developer version to VS 2005? I'm trying to get accurate code coverage numbers but in order to do that it seems I need to have one pass through the system instead of one per test project.

 

Thank you