Why is "Get Latest Version" so poor?

[mike]

I just bought your product. So I'm now a paying customer. Both in terms of paying in price and also in frustration.

All I want to do is Get the Latest version.

Here's the deal.

1. I'm at work, I checkin a bunch of changes.

2. I go home, I've got my tree from yesterday still out. I click "Get Latest Version" wanting to RECURSIVELY get ALL of the changes that were checked in.

3. I open the Vault client. I click "Get Latest Version" on my solution file. It just doesn't do it. I click on each project file separately and say "Get Latest Version". It just doesn't do it.

What am I doing wrong?

[sterwill]

Are there any error messages in your messages pane? If you view the history of one of the files, does it show your check-in from work? If so, can you View the history item and see your changes?

[mike]

I didn't get any error messages. I was sitting here clicking "get latest version" about 50 times. Maybe it was failing to "auto-merge", I don't know. I tried so many things.

My solution has multiple projects in it. Is it true or not true that clicking on my solution and clicking "get latest version" should recursively get latest version for all projects?

[taustin]

Hey Mike,

Are you using the GUI client or the IDE client? Your post makes it sound like you are using the GUI client. If so, if you click on a folder (like, say, the top level of your working folder) instead of the solution file and click "Get Latest" I believe that it will work like you expect it to. If you are using the IDE client, then I dunno. I don't use it myself, so hopefully one of the fine support guys around here can help.

Hope this helps,

Terry Austin

[Guest]

We are currently evaluating Vault for purchase while doing a project with ~8 developers. We are also finding that the 'Get Latest Version (recursive)' doesn't work in the situation described above. It also is a Solution with multiple (8) projects within it.

Also, we have found a disturbing lack of ability to synchronize in the following setting:
1) User checks out foobar.aspx.cs
2) User makes changes to foobar.aspx.cs
3) User decides approach isn't what s/he wants and clicks 'Undo Checkout'
4) The file is correctly released in Vault.
5) User clicks 'Get Latest version' over file.....
6) The locally modified file is still present and the current version in Vault remains on the server.
7) User tries 'Get Latest Version (recursive)' over Solution file, then project file and still can't get rid of the locally modified copy.

To get around this, we have been closing VS.NET down, restarting and doing a File... Source Control.... Open from source control to reget the entire project. This works except now we get all folders with an trailing underscore as it is a 'new project' with a name collision. Ex. FoobarWeb_1, etc.

Anyone else seen this? Is there a workaround or best practice? We are using V 2.0.1 (build 2017)

Thanks much!
Dave

[Guest]

Build should be 2137 on previous post.
Sorry!
Dave

[jclausius]

Dave:

My guess is you do not have the revert option enabled.

On a file that is checked out

1. Select the File, and invoke Undo Checkout.
2. On the Undo Checkout, click the "Options" button on the toolbar. ( On my machine it is just left of the Sort Option.)
3. On the Vault Undo Check Out dialog, verify the option is set to "Revert".
4. Click OK on the Vault Undo Check Out dialog.
5. Click "Undo Checkout" on the VS.Net Undo Checkout dialog.

If this is not the problem, please let me know.

[jeremy_sg]

Dave,

Another possibility is that you are not selecting Overwrite while doing a Get Latest. The default is to Attempt Automatic Merge, which will try to keep the modifications that are currently in the working folder. If you select Overwrite, then the file in the working folder will be replaced with the latest contents in the repository. For more on Get Latest options, look at:

http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=162

[jclausius]

Another option on "Get"...

Change VS.Net's Advanced SCC Provider options

1. From within VS.Net menu, Tools -> Options -> Source Control -> SCC Provider.
2. Click the "Advanced..." button.
3. Enable the "Always display command dialog on Get Latest Version".
4. Click OK on Vault Options dialog.
5. Click OK on VS.Net Options dialog.
6. Invoke Get Latest on the files.
7. Change the option on the Get dialog to overwrite the file.

[mike]

Dave,

yeah - thats the same symptoms I've had.

What you need to do (and you aren't going to like this) is to get all 8 developers to sit in a room together for about an hour, and just bang around with all the different options and test them and understand them.

Our team here is an experienced team and we generally think we know what we're doing (that might be our mistake right there!). But we didn't take enough time to learn vault before using it. Vault will HAPPILY lead you through many many many different ways to lose data. We easily lost 3-5 days of work while evaluating it due to vault just chucking our work.

The vault guys appear to be usually right - there is almost always some flag or setting that you have to click here or click there which will make the problem go away. But unless you sit down and learn ALL THE FLAGS before you start, it will be too late before you learn it.

Vault team- my recommendation is to figure out a way to ditch 90% of your configuration options. There is just too much in there. Sure, its flexible, but it happily leads users down paths of self-destruction.

Oh - Dave - one more thing - don't trust the IDE vault environment. It doesn't work well at all. Stay in the Vault Client. In the IDE, it doesn't really know where you've made changes. The icons are some sort of sticky state. You need to use the Vault client, which actually knows which files have content changes.

Mike

[jclausius]

Mike:

But we didn't take enough time to learn vault before using it. Vault will HAPPILY lead you through many many many different ways to lose data. We easily lost 3-5 days of work while evaluating it due to vault just chucking our work.

It is SourceGear's intention that people with a minor understanding of version control sit down and start using Vault within a day or two. I apologize that you lost 3-5 days of work just understanding Vault. I appreciate your feedback, and will be looking at using it to help us improve the product and its training material.

You are correct that Vault can be set up in many different configurations. Vault ships in the most standard mode, which "out of the box" works well for most people (VSS Mode). I believe except for one setting (over-write on undo-checkout), these defaults are work for the Vault IDE as well.


Can I ask some questions. I'm hoping to gain a better understanding of what transpired during your initial sessions with Vault.

1) Did you happen to see this post - http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=562? Does the information here help or hurt?

2) By default, VS.Net works using the read-only file attribute. The Vault IDE client will configure itself to work in VSS mode, even if you use CVS mode on the client. However, this whole strategy breaks down if at any time, the Vault GUI client is used in CVS mode - leaving files writable.

How did you get the original files from Vault? Did you invoke "Open From Source Control" from within VS.Net? Did you do a get from the GUI client? Did you happen to edit->commit any files from the GUI client outside of VS.Net?

3) I'm a bit concerned about your lost work. The default options are set to save backup copies of any overwritten file in the _sgbak folder in your working folder. Can you describe how you lost work? Were the changes you had made also saved to the file on disk before the over write? Were the changes in a file not yet saved?

4) Did you happen to change VS.Net Source Code Control Settings? Or did you just use the default settings? (From within VS.Net -> Tools -> Options Source Code Control Settings) If it is not too much to ask, can you post your last known settings for these VS.Net options?

I would appreciate it if you can respond to these questions in an open and honest manner so we can make the necessary changes to help others that may be walking in your footsteps.

Thanks,

[dan]

To get around this, we have been closing VS.NET down, restarting and doing a File... Source Control.... Open from source control to reget the entire project. This works except now we get all folders with an trailing underscore as it is a 'new project' with a name collision. Ex. FoobarWeb_1, etc.

Dave,

I think for your workflow, the best thing to do is to set the option for what to do on an Undo Checkout to "Revert". It is "leave" by default, so that by default work doesn't get overwritten. However, even if you revert a file on Undo Checkout, it will backup the file in a _sgbak folder in the working folder. Vault is very careful about backing up files before overwriting them, so no work gets lost.

It is also true that we also don't overwrite local files that are Edited or Renegade by default on Get Latest - you have to change that option too either on the Get Latest dialog, or in the global options. Again, we are very careful about not overwriting files unless you change options to allow it. I wouldn't recommend change this option to "overwrite" by default. If you are working in a file and then do a Get Latest, it will overwrite it, whether it is checked out or not, so it probably isn't something you want to do by default.

As you've probably figured out, Open from Source Control isn't the way to go on this.

[dan]

Oh - Dave - one more thing - don't trust the IDE vault environment. It doesn't work well at all. Stay in the Vault Client. In the IDE, it doesn't really know where you've made changes. The icons are some sort of sticky state. You need to use the Vault client, which actually knows which files have content changes.

Our goal is to work as well as VSS does with the Visual Studio IDEs, which admittedly has its problems. The icons in Visual Studio are determined by the IDE, not by Vault. Usually they are wrong when a file is in a read-write state and not checked out, which Visual Studio handles very poorly.

[mike]

Dan - I appreciate your problem with the IDE. Now that I've had so many problems with Vault - I understand that the IDE provides you very limited hooks and prevents Vault from really doing all that it wants to do.

The problem is that I didn't know this when I started using Vault initially. We were specifically looking for a program with good IDE integration, and Vault claimed to have it. It wasn't until I started using the product that I discovered the IDE integration wasn't what I wanted.

To be honest, without IDE integration, WinCVS is a pretty compelling alternative.

[mike]

Thanks everyone for your responses, but I'm still stuck.

Today, I decided to try to get a nice clean new tree. I can't do this from the IDE nor from the Vault Client.

From the IDE:
- I go to File -> Source Control -> Open from Source Control
- IN the "working folder", I select a new folder that does not exist
- Click "OK"
- It prompts me for whether I want it to create the directory. Click YES
- Now I get a dialog that says, "Get Latest Version" for every file and directory in my tree. The last couple of checkouts I did I had to click this 300 times or whatever to get my tree.
- Jeff - I tried your suggestion to Enable the "Always display command dialog on Get Latest Version". No change.
- The dialog box does not have any options to "only show this when the shift key is held"
- I am not holding the shift key.

- One other bug here - when this happens, you can't even cancel. You have to kill the entire IDE.


OK - Plan B - try checkout from the Vault Client:

- Killed the IDE
- Open the Vault Client
- Click on my source folder and "Set Working Directory" to a new, non-existent directory
- Click "Get Latest Version"
- The "Get Latest Version" dialog pops up, but has an option to "only display when the shift key is pressed". I check that, click OK.
- It checks everything out - WOOHOO!!!
- Open IDE
- Open my solution
- Prompt says, "projects have been added to this solution, do you want to get them from source control" - Umm.. I guess so. OK
- Now I'm back in the infinite loop.


Can I send in my config file or something? Whats causing this? My machine both at work and at home have this issue, yet nobody else here seems to have it.

Mike