Msdeploy Source (contentPath) and destination (metaKey) are not compatible for...

When using msdeploy to migrate a site you receive the error below:

C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3>msdeploy -verb:sync -source:package
=c:\Sitewirefly.zip -dest:metakey=lm/w3svc/1

Error: Source (contentPath) and destination (metaKey) are not compatible for the
 given operation.
Error count: 1.

After spending some time troubleshooting, the root cause seems to just be a corrupt zip file. In my case my zip file is close to 7GB. After chasing a red herring on this particular error I tried opening the zip file and did not open. On windows 2003 there is a 2GB limitation or it gets corrupt. 2008 does not have this limitation. I tried using 7zip where does appear to zip and open, but when opening the zip file all the contents are 0 bytes. Winzip did not help even though there is no 2GB limit with the new editions after 9.0. As an alternative I just ended up using the archive method below.


C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3>msdeploy -verb:sync -source:archive
dir=c:\site1archive,encryptpassword=mypassword -dest:metakey=lm/w3svc/3 > msdepl
oymigrate.log

C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy V3>msdeploy -verb:sync -source:archive
dir=c:\site1archive,encryptpassword=mypassword -dest:metakey=lm/w3svc/3 > msdepl
oymigrate.log


James Chong
MCITP EA EMA; MCSE M+, S+
Security+, Project+, ITIL
msexchangetips.blogspot.com