Why are SSIS custom tasks not showing in SSIS Toolbox?

Question

I have some custom control flow and data flow tasks that are not showing up in the SSIS Toolbox. When I open a package in SSDT containing the custom tasks I get several errors loading the package.

Error loading MyModuleTemplate1.dtsx: Cannot create a task from XML for task "__ECT Fetch Configuration", type "MyEncryptedConfiguration, MyCustomTasks, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=2bdffe791d57af79" due to error 0x80070057 "The parameter is incorrect.".

I've followed Russ' and Matt's replies from the following post http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/5fdf9243-7e38-401e-bf4a-9251738877f9/how-to-browse-the-installed-custom-task-in-sql-server-2012-ssis-ie-custom-ssis-control-flow-task, however, the tasks still don't show.

I'm using SQL Server 2012 x64 with SSDT on Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. I have verified that the tasks are in the GAC and that the assemblies are in the appropriate SQL Server\110\DTS directories. The assemblies have been compiled as 32-bit since I kept getting a warning about targeting Any CPU while referencing 32-bit assemblies (the SQL reference assemblies).

I'm able execute the packages with the custom tasks, on the target server successfully through command line. Additionally, these tasks work fine on my development machine. I can see the tasks in the SSIS Toolbox and can open packages with the tasks without issue. My dev machine is nearly identical to the target machine except that I have full installation of Visual Studio 2010.

Am I missing something?

Answer 1

This problem is the result of WiX installer not properly installing the custom tasks. Below is what I did to verify this.

For test purposes I created an empty custom task and manually deployed it to the target server by copying the files and the DTS\Tasks directory. This worked so I added the .cs file of one of the tasks that was throwing errors, to the test custom task and re-deployed. I was able to see both tasks. After cleaning the solution with the original custom tasks, I manually deployed the original custom task to the target server, like the test custom tasks and was able see the tasks in the SSIS toolbox. I then uninstalled the custom tasks and deployed them to the target server using a WiX installer -- the problem resurfaced. So the problem is with the installer. My previous attempts at manually installing the custom tasks failed because I was using the assemblies installed from the WiX installer, although I don't know why.