[Before(Test)] hooks don't report useful errors in VS (Code) or Rider

[JohnGalt1717]

Is there a way to get more than this:

BeforeTest hook failed
at TUnit.Engine.Services.HookExecutor.ExecuteBeforeTestHooksAsync(AbstractExecutableTest test, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
at TUnit.Engine.TestExecutor.ExecuteAsync(AbstractExecutableTest executableTest, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
at TUnit.Engine.TestExecutor.ExecuteAsync(AbstractExecutableTest executableTest, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
at TUnit.Engine.TestExecutor.ExecuteAsync(AbstractExecutableTest executableTest, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
at TUnit.Engine.Services.TestExecution.TestCoordinator.<>c__DisplayClass10_0.<<ExecuteTestInternalAsync>b__0>d.MoveNext()
at TUnit.Engine.Services.TestExecution.TestCoordinator.<>c__DisplayClass10_0.<<ExecuteTestInternalAsync>b__0>d.MoveNext()
at TUnit.Engine.Services.TestExecution.RetryHelper.ExecuteWithRetry(TestContext testContext, Func`1 action)
at TUnit.Engine.Services.TestExecution.RetryHelper.ExecuteWithRetry(TestContext testContext, Func`1 action)
at TUnit.Engine.Services.TestExecution.TestCoordinator.ExecuteTestInternalAsync(AbstractExecutableTest test, CancellationToken cancellationToken)

Obviously just calling the method at the start of every test works in this case but [Before(class)] has the same issue and that's less straight forward.

It would be nice if the errors actually directly reported like they do in the tests themselves.

[thomhurst]

Pretty sure this is an IDE issue, as if you run via the command line you should see the inner exception

[JohnGalt1717]

I ran this:

dotnet test Tests/Banking/BankingProviderTests/BankingProviderTests.csproj -- --treenode-filter "/*/BankingProviderTests/Transfers/TransfersTests/InternalToInternal_Succeeds"

This runs a single test.

This is what it gets:

   Tests\Banking\BankingProviderTests\bin\Debug\net10.0\BankingProviderTests.dll : error run failed: Tests failed: Tests\Banking\BankingProviderTests\bin\Debug\net10.0\TestResults\BankingProviderTests_net10.0_x64.log' [net10.0|x64]

Test summary: total: 0, failed: 0, succeeded: 0, skipped: 0, duration: 0.3s

Which is even worse than what the IDE is reporting.

[thomhurst]

Your filter is wrong. It should only have 4 segments - You've got 5.

dotnet test Tests/Banking/BankingProviderTests/BankingProviderTests.csproj -- --treenode-filter "/*/*/TransfersTests/InternalToInternal_Succeeds"

[JohnGalt1717]

OK, thanks. But why are all of the clients that consume this reporting junk instead of the proper error?

[thomhurst]

No idea!

[JohnGalt1717]

It's odd to me that it works fine if I just call the function directly in the test, but doesn't work with the hook. Is there any way to work around whatever the limitation is?

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue is stale because it has been open 30 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed in 5 days.

[robertcoltheart]

This is still an issue with .NET 10 and Visual Studio 2026.

For reference, NUnit's [SetUp] feature correctly shows exceptions in the VS test output: