Solution: Failed to create Release Artifact Directory – Azure DevOps

Sometimes you may get an error saying failed to create Release Artifact directory and even if you redeploy so many times you will still get an error like this

Failed to create Release Artifact Directory E:\_AgentAzureDevOps\R10\a”

The error occurs when the Release directory is opened in Windows explorer or any other folders and during deployment, AzureDevOps agent tries to delete the Release artifact directory and recreate it. Since the artifact directory is already open under some user’s account, it wont get deleted.

Solution 1 : Restart the machine, so all the users will be logged out and the folder won’t be opened in any users account

Solution 2: Logout the users you suspect who might have opened this folder