Small and medium business | Business Central, N...

AL VS Code sometimes does not compile whole solution as it seems

(2) Share

Report

Posted on by JV-15051434-0

Hi all,

Some of a mystery i come accross ever so often. It seems like the AL builder does not always compile the whole solution. Sometimes, when i publish my extension to a Business Central environment some code is missing for some reason. First i thought it was human error publishing a wrong branch. But i have proof now that after is published a branch the code is different in the downloaded code of the extension.

A few things i tried to prevent this:

a. i turned off al.incrementalbuild in the workspace

b. i tried clearing the rad.json to publish it first to anoher environment.

I have the suspicion that it happens when changing branches a lot. i think this because of my experiences and the fact that the rad.json is not updated because it is in the git ignore. I cannot prove that this is the problem, but loading it again always resolves the issue. both tried solutions are done to convince the compiler to compile everything no questions asked. But in my opinion that is only a solution not a known cause.

My question is. Do you guys have the same experience? When does it happen? Can i force the compiler to always do a full build if i want to push stuff for testing? Am i doing something wrong?

Categories:

Dynamics 365 Business Central

All responses (2)

Answers (0)

JV-15051434-0 27 on at

Like (1)

Report

AL VS Code sometimes does not compile whole solution as it seems

@Sohail Ahmed why should i throw away the .alpackages? isnt that where all the depencies are stored? Or do you mean throwing away all created .app files of your own app?

Also, if you throw away the rad.json it wont accomplish anything. It will just rebuild the data in the rad.json the way it was after a build. Publishing is the only way to clear it.
Suggested answer

Sohail Ahmed 4,844 on at

Like (2)

Report

AL VS Code sometimes does not compile whole solution as it seems

Yes, the issue of the AL compiler sometimes not compiling the whole solution, leading to missing code when publishing extensions, is a known and common problem in AL development within VS Code. This often occurs with frequent branch switching or external file changes, where the incremental build process gets confused. There's no direct "force full build" button, but the most effective workarounds you already apply, such as deleting the .alpackages folder and .vscode/rad.json file before building and publishing, or using "Developer: Reload Window," are necessary steps to force a clean compilation and resolve the issue.

✅ Mark this answer as verified if it helps you.

Community site session details

AL VS Code sometimes does not compile whole solution as it seems

Helpful resources

News and Announcements

Quick Links

Ramesh Kumar – Community Spotlight

Congratulations to the June Top 10 Community Leaders!

Announcing the Engage with the Community forum!

Leaderboard > Small and medium business | Business Central, NAV, RMS

Featured topics

Product updates

Community site session details

AL VS Code sometimes does not compile whole solution as it seems

Helpful resources

News and Announcements

Quick Links

Ramesh Kumar – Community Spotlight

Congratulations to the June Top 10 Community Leaders!

Announcing the Engage with the Community forum!

Subscribe to this forum!

Select categories

Leaderboard > Small and medium business | Business Central, NAV, RMS

Featured topics

Product updates