I have been running Octopus Deploy 1.6.3.1723 for some time and this particular deployment has been working for a good while.
Today, all of a sudden I have been recieving the following error when trying to deploy.
2014-08-04 12:55:15 ERROR System.Exception: Variables could not be evaluated because the variable ‘OctopusWebSiteName’ is cyclic: OctopusWebSiteName -> OctopusWebSiteName
From the tentacle machines event log
The description for Event ID 0 from source Octopus cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.
If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.
The following information was included with the event:
2014-08-04 14:01:06,033 [5] ERROR Octopus [(null)] - Error while executing job: Variables could not be evaluated because the variable ‘OctopusWebSiteName’ is cyclic: OctopusWebSiteName -> OctopusWebSiteName
System.Exception: Variables could not be evaluated because the variable ‘OctopusWebSiteName’ is cyclic: OctopusWebSiteName -> OctopusWebSiteName
at Octopus.Shared.Contracts.VariableEvaluator.VariableNode.CheckForCycles(IEnumerable1 list, Stack1 seenBefore) in c:\w\e6923628be6eaf72\source\Octopus.Shared\Contracts\VariableEvaluator.cs:line 127
at Octopus.Shared.Contracts.VariableEvaluator.EnsureThereAreNoCycles(IEnumerable`1 nodes) in c:\w\e6923628be6eaf72\source\Octopus.Shared\Contracts\VariableEvaluator.cs:line 42
at Octopus.Shared.Conventions.ConventionProcessor.EvaluateVariables(IConventionContext context, IActivityLog log) in c:\w\e6923628be6eaf72\source\Octopus.Shared\Conventions\ConventionProcessor.cs:line 92
at Octopus.Shared.Conventions.ConventionProcessor.RunConventions(IConventionContext context) in c:\w\e6923628be6eaf72\source\Octopus.Shared\Conventions\ConventionProcessor.cs:line 21
at Octopus.Tentacle.Deployment.DeploymentController.Execute(StoredPackage package, VariableDictionary variables, IActivityLog log) in c:\w\e6923628be6eaf72\source\Octopus.Tentacle\Deployment\DeploymentController.cs:line 50
at System.Dynamic.UpdateDelegates.UpdateAndExecuteVoid3[T0,T1,T2](CallSite site, T0 arg0, T1 arg1, T2 arg2)
at Octopus.Tentacle.Services.Jobs.JobQueue.RunDeploymentsOnBackgroundThread(Object ignored) in c:\w\e6923628be6eaf72\source\Octopus.Tentacle\Services\Jobs\JobQueue.cs:line 82
the message resource is present but the message is not found in the string/message table
Update: The solution was to delete and recreate the offending variable.
I thought to still post this as googling around did nto exactly help to much for this error.