Issues Downloading Artifacts in Azure DevOps

Question

Issues Downloading Artifacts in Azure DevOps

Eric Allen 0

A user in our organization is using Azure DevOps stated that they are having issues downloading artifacts. They access Azure DevOps, then get to Azure Pipelines, then she attempts to download artifacts. But once she does, she's brought to a 404 Page Not Found screen.

Attempted clearing the browser cache in addition to Incognito/InPrivate mode. The issues remained regardless of the browser.

Tejaswini Billakurthi 250 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-09-04T17:49:29.7333333+00:00
Hello @Eric Allen

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q & A!

Since the issue persists after clearing the browser cache and testing InPrivate/Incognito mode across multiple browsers, the problem is likely not browser-related.

A 404 error when downloading Azure DevOps artifacts is commonly caused by one of the following:

The artifact is no longer available due to retention policy cleanup or deletion.

The affected user does not have sufficient permissions to download the artifact.

The artifact download URL cannot be accessed due to network, proxy, or security restrictions.

The artifact exists, but there is a user-specific access issue.

As an initial validation step, please navigate to:

Pipelines → Select the Pipeline Run → Summary

and confirm that the artifact is still present and visible in the run.

If the artifact exists, please verify whether other users can download the same artifact from the same pipeline run:

If other users can download it successfully, the issue is likely related to permissions or user-specific access.

If all users receive the same 404 error, we should investigate artifact availability, retention settings, or access to the download endpoint.

As an additional test, you can attempt to download the artifact using Azure CLI:

az pipelines runs artifact download \

--organization https://dev.azure.com/ \

--project \

--run-id \

--artifact-name \

--path ./artifacts

If the CLI download succeeds while the browser download fails, that may indicate an issue specific to the web download path, permissions, or network access.

Could you also confirm:

Is the issue affecting only one user or multiple users?

Does the issue occur for all artifacts or only a specific pipeline run?

Are you using Azure DevOps Services or Azure DevOps Server?

References:

Publish and download pipeline artifacts

DownloadPipelineArtifact@2 task

Azure DevOps retention policies

Please share the results, and we can investigate further.

Please "Upvote the Answer" if this information helped you. This will help us and others in the community as well.

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

kagiyama yutaka 5,330

I think the artifact 404 in DevOps comes from the run not holding that artifact anymore and the user not having read‑permission for it. Opening the run’s Summary and clicking the artifact name is the quickest way to see which applies.　

0 comments

Answer 2

A 404 when downloading Azure DevOps artifacts is commonly handled by first verifying the artifact from the pipeline run UI, then using a supported download method outside the browser if the UI path fails.

In Azure DevOps, go to Pipelines > select the pipeline run > Summary.
In the related section, select the published artifact.
Expand the artifact folder and confirm the artifact is actually present.

If the artifact exists but the browser download opens a 404 page, use one of these supported download methods:

YAML shortcut

  steps:
  - download: current
    artifact: WebApp

DownloadPipelineArtifact@2 task

  steps:
  - task: DownloadPipelineArtifact@2
    inputs:
      artifact: WebApp

Azure CLI

  az pipelines runs artifact download --artifact-name 'WebApp' --path $(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/bin/WebApp --run-id '<run id here>'

Important checks:

Azure DevOps Server vs Azure DevOps Services: DownloadPipelineArtifact@2 is supported on Azure DevOps Services only. On Azure DevOps Server, use Download Build Artifacts instead.
Cross-project downloads: if the artifact is from a different project, the user must have the appropriate permissions on both the downstream project and the pipeline that generated the artifact.
If using build artifacts in classic pipelines, configure Download Build Artifacts with:
- Download artifacts produced by: Specific build
- Project
- Build pipeline
- Build version to download: specific version
- Build
- Download type: specific artifact
- Artifact name

If this started happening across multiple runs, there is also precedent for a service-side outage affecting artifact downloads. In that case, a practical workaround is downloading with Azure CLI until the issue is resolved.