releaserelease-managementms-release-managementazure-devops

VSTS - Cannot approve release

I understand that VSTS Release is still not under final version, but I am stuck with a problem. When there is a pending approval, sometimes it is simply not possible to approve/reject the release. Example:

enter image description here As you can see I have 3 environments: DEV, QA and PROD. When deploying to DEV, there is no approval required. So now it shows "In Progress" but an approval is waiting.

enter image description here On the picture above is a proof that we are waiting for the Post deployment approval.

enter image description here Finally, you can see above that I configured myself to receive notification for approval and to be an approver.

Any idea?

[UPDATE] The above shows that I could approve pre-deployment to QA (DEV here was auto-approved), and now I cannot approve the post-deployment to QA.

Here is a screenshot of a successful release (only on DEV environment though), and having the same warning message:

Cannot update deployment status for (web app name) - {"Message":"Repository could not be found."}

enter image description here

Solution

  • When we have a prior release candidate that we are not going to deploy to prod, it looks like this:

    Release Pipeline

    Note this is in the new Azure DevOps UI for VSTS/TFS builds and releases. This shows, chronologically from the bottom up, two releases deployed to prod, then a third release not deployed to Prod, then a fourth release (at top), which cannot be deployed to prod until the third release is rejected or cancelled. Both will work but in my experience the release tracking is a little cleaner if you reject the release rather than cancel it.

    To do this, click "Pending approval" in the third release Prod environment to view approvals and then click Reject. If you have multiple prior releases not deployed to Prod you will need to reject or cancel them all - again my preference is to reject them chronologically (from first undeployed release near the bottom towards the last undeployed release near the top).

    Once done, the release at the top will no longer appear as queued and you will be able to approve it (assuming you have enabled Pre-deployment approvals for approving deployment to Prod) to allow deployment to commence.