VsTac task failed, could not find file appAsTgz.tgz when using global Cordova toolset

Question

When I use my globally installed Cordova 7.1.0 toolset and do an iOS remote build (to simulator or to Local Device), I almost immediately get the error message:

Answer 1

Yes it is possible and up until today I have been able to do this without too many problems however today I experienced the issue you have mentioned and I have spent all day trying to resolve it.

Unfortunately I cannot say exactly what caused it because I have been making lots of changes trying to resolve CORS issues after updating to use wkwebview for IOS (I am using Ionic framework by the way).

I have now resolved the issue after trying various things such as installing the latest updates for Visual Studio, trying to upgrade Node.js to the latest version (which I then had to revert back to version 6.12.0 due to problems with node-sass).

Again it is difficult to say exactly what fixed this because I have spent hours today trying various things in a panic to resolve the issue but I think it the solution was:

1. Delete node_modules in my project
2. Run npm install to rebuild the node_modules folder
3. I also had to run npm install -g cordova@latest