Azure Devops release - File Transform - Provided node is empty or a comment - azure-devops

Question

I am trying to transform a .config file from an XML transform file in a release stage. I am using the standard File Transform task. I added a transform.xml file (which isnt linked to a legitimate release) to my artifact and can see it. When i try and use it I get the following System.Debug output:
2020-05-01T17:25:21.6011428Z Processing substitution for xml node : connectionStrings
2020-05-01T17:25:21.6022113Z ##[debug]Provided node is empty or a comment.
2020-05-01T17:25:21.6025339Z ##[debug]Provided node is empty or a comment.
2020-05-01T17:25:21.6027416Z ##[debug]Unable to find node with tag 'configSections' in provided xml file.
2020-05-01T17:25:21.6028615Z Skipped Updating file: xxxxxxxx.config
The contents of the transform.xml file are as below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
<connectionStrings xdt:Transform="Replace">
<add name="XX" connectionString="user id=XXX;password=XXXXX;data source=XXXXXXXX"/>
</connectionStrings>
</configuration>

Answer 1

Azure Devops release - File Transform - Provided node is empty or a comment
I could not reproduce this issue with following configuration file and your transform file:
Configuration file web.config (code sample from XML transformation example):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="DefaultConnection"
connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDb)\\MSDB;DbFilename=aspcore-local.mdf;" />
</connectionStrings>
<appSettings>
<add key="webpages:Version" value="3.0.0.0" />
<add key="webpages:Enabled" value="false" />
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<authentication mode="None" />
<compilation targetFramework="4.5" debug="true" />
</system.web>
</configuration>
Then create a Web.test.config with your contents of the transform file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration xmlns:xdt="http://schemas.microsoft.com/XML-Document-Transform">
<connectionStrings xdt:Transform="Replace">
<add name="XX" connectionString="user id=XXX;password=XXXXX;data source=XXXXXXXX"/>
</connectionStrings>
</configuration>
Note:
XML transformation will be run on the *.config file for transformation configuration files named *.Release.config or *.<stage>.config. So, we could not use the transform.xml instead of *.<stage>.config.
As the test result, the connectionStrings string in the web.config was replaced:
Please check the document File transforms and variable substitution reference for some more details.
Hope this helps.