LGTM.com: C# extraction fails with "MSBUILD : error MSB1025: An internal failure occurred while running MSBuild"

[Marcono1234]

Based on this GitHub Community thread. I mainly created this GitHub discussion here because there has not been a response on the GitHub community thread yet, and because the C# extractor is part of this repository so maybe this repository is better suited for this discussion?

It appears some C# builds on LGTM.com fail with an internal MSBuild error:

[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout] MSBUILD : error MSB1025: An internal failure occurred while running MSBuild.
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout] Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.NodeFailedToLaunchException: No such file or directory
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout]  ---> System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception (2): No such file or directory
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout]    at System.Diagnostics.Process.ForkAndExecProcess(String filename, String[] argv, String[] envp, String cwd, Boolean redirectStdin, Boolean redirectStdout, Boolean redirectStderr, Boolean setCredentials, UInt32 userId, UInt32 groupId, UInt32[] groups, Int32& stdinFd, Int32& stdoutFd, Int32& stderrFd, Boolean usesTerminal, Boolean throwOnNoExec)
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout]    at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartCore(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout]    at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout]    at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)
[2021-06-20 20:32:41] [build-stdout]    at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.NodeProviderOutOfProcBase.LaunchNode(String msbuildLocation, String commandLineArgs)

An example for such a project is HaveIBeenPwned/PwnedPasswordsAzureFunction.

Building the project using GitHub actions succeeds; and creating the CodeQL database locally (in Linux Docker container) works without issues.

Disclaimer: I am not familiar with C# or .NET; I was just curious whether the above mentioned project can be built.

[hvitved]

I have seen this error before, but never figured out what causes it. But it seems were are not the only ones, e.g. dotnet/msbuild#5355. Since Code Scanning through Actions will replace lgtm.com, I suggest using that instead.

[Marcono1234]

Code Scanning through Actions will replace lgtm.com

If I understand it correctly the Code Scanning Action is intended for the maintainers of a project to scan their code.
But one advantage of LGTM.com's query console is that it can be used to test out new queries on multiple projects pretty easily.
Will this (in some form) still be possible in the future?

[hvitved]

We are working on a solution to replace LGTM's query console.