SOS usability problems leads to loss of source code changes!

jacobsj@ieee.org · Post by **jacobsj@ieee.org** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 1:15 pm

Frequently, in the course of development I have the need to refresh the source on my machine. There can be several dozen files scattered over a dozen or more projects that require updating. At the same time I often have some files checked out to me which have been modified but are not ready to check back in. When I do a "get latest" it asks me if I want to overwrite, etc., some of the files. If SOS is confused about the status of the files on my machine (which happens not to infrequently) it would ask permission to overwrite each of them; so I check the "apply to all" option on that dialog. However this gives SOS permission to overwrite files that I have checked out and modified: BAD!!! There needs to be a failsafe mechanism that prevents overwriting checked out files unless I explicitly give permission for checked out files; the dialog should look signficantly different from the other dialogs that could pop up during a "get latest". In the latest occurrence I was saved because the DevStudio had a copy of the files in memory which I could save on top of the files.

lbauer · Post by **lbauer** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:40 pm

What version of SOS are you using? SOS 4.0 gives you the option to not overwrite but merge later.

crwdfwtx · Post by **crwdfwtx** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 1:07 pm

Good luck getting Sourcegear to even acknowledge that this is a legitimate issue. The standard reply seems to be that all local modified files have the same status. Never mind that you might have temporarily made a local file writable, and then later need to get others' changes, *without* overwriting your own checked out files. I and a couple of others have been fighting this issue ever since 4.0 was released with no luck.

Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

lbauer · Post by **lbauer** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 5:03 pm

We're not ignoring this issue. SOS 4.0 has options to avoid overwriting locally modified files. A user can choose to merge his local changes when he does a "get" or can choose to not overwrite, but merge later if there are conflicts between the latest version in the database and the user's locally modified file.

If there's a particular situation that is problematic, we can help determine the best settings, steps, etc. to deal with it. If you can provide the scenario, or steps to reproduce, we'd be happy to work with you.

crwdfwtx · Post by **crwdfwtx** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 11:53 am

- Start with a clean project
- Check out some files
- Meanwhile, other users have checked out files
- I make a local file writeable in order to make temporary changes so that I can compile
- I want to Get Latest and get all the updated files, including overwriting my non-checked out local files

There is no combination of settings in SOS that will get *all* code from SOS *except* my checked out files. And I'm not even going into the issue of 'Unknown' file status, which is a constant issue (and no, I'm not using SOS and VSS concurrently).

I have reverted to 3.5.x in order to have a source control tool that will not overwrite my checked out files. This seems like a basic feature but evidently it's not a priority for Sourcegear. In fact, as your reply indicates, there is no acknowledgement that overwriting checked out files is even an issue.

Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX

Killer · Post by **Killer** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 9:11 am

Hello all,
I am pretty glad to own such a handy tool as SOS. It works really FAST!!!

To make my life even more comfortable, I do care some issues

1. I want to share crwdfwtx's disappointment with SOS Classic Client(I've got v4.0.2).

The issue is not solved yet and SourceGear seems to leave it as is for future.

Yet one more point to upset is that fix looks to be a VERY SIMPLE thing - it needs the only check: when about overwriting file find out where it is checked by current user and ask one more time whether to overwrite the file (sure, give user option "overwrite all").

2. Yet one more thing regarding SOS Client usage:
when updating project tree (

why isn't it done automatically

) I get multiplying nodes in tree (how many times I press Refresh Project Tree, so many times I get duplicated nodes in project tree). To get rid of this BUG I am to refresh tree at root.

Please reply, whether any actions are undertaken to fix these two issues.
Thank you in advance.

lbauer · Post by **lbauer** » Fri Dec 03, 2004 4:02 pm

1. I want to share crwdfwtx's disappointment with SOS Classic Client(I've got v4.0.2). The issue is not solved yet and SourceGear seems to leave it as is for future.
Yet one more point to upset is that fix looks to be a VERY SIMPLE thing - it needs the only check: when about overwriting file find out where it is checked by current user and ask one more time whether to overwrite the file (sure, give user option "overwrite all").

SOS 4.1 has an option to "Always skip files that are checked out and modifed." This should address your concerns. SOS 4.1 will be released in a few weeks.

2. Yet one more thing regarding SOS Client usage:
when updating project tree ( why isn't it done automatically ) I get multiplying nodes in tree (how many times I press Refresh Project Tree, so many times I get duplicated nodes in project tree). To get rid of this BUG I am to refresh tree at root.

Refreshing the project tree is a very expensive operation, unless you have a very tiny project tree. A periodic automatic refresh would really slow things down -- to the point SOS might not be any faster than VSS over the Internet.

We hestitate to implement a feature that would negate all of SOS's speed advantages, though I can see that an auto refresh could be useful if other users are constantly adding new projects and subprojects to the tree.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:03 am

Thank you very much for your instant response!

I am looking forward to v4.1 release!

Yet I want to accent on the second part of my second question. It was my mistake not to point it separately. I am to correct this now.
Would you please confirm wether it is a bug or a by-design behaviour that when I manually refresh project tree I get multiplying nodes in it.

e.g. I have tree

$/proj
- subproj
-- subsubproj1
-- subsubproj2
subsubproj3

Refreshing at subproj level I get the following:

$/proj
- subproj
-- subsubproj1
-- subsubproj2
-- subsubproj3
- subproj
-- subsubproj1
-- subsubproj2
-- subsubproj3

Killer · Post by **Killer** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:05 am

I am sorry, previous post is mine.

lbauer · Post by **lbauer** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:45 am

Obviously you shouldn't have duplicate nodes in the project tree. If you looked at the project tree with VSS you probably won't see the extra subprojects.

For some reason your client-side cache file (databaseX.sos) isn't being updated properly. We've had a few reports of this from other users and have not been able to replicate it in-house. So there may be a bug or there may be something in the client machine configuration that causes this.

Are you able to reproduce this? If so can you send me the exact steps?

If you refresh from Root, does the tree have the correct projects and subprojects?

What if you delete the databaseX.sos file and rebuild the client-side cache. Does the problem happen again?

See this KB article about recreating the client-side cache.
http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=1059

crwdfwtx · Post by **crwdfwtx** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 1:25 pm

SOS 4.1 has an option to "Always skip files that are checked out and modifed." This should address your concerns. SOS 4.1 will be released in a few weeks.

That is great news! It has been disapointing not to be able to use the cool new features of 4.x because of this issue. I will check with the site periodically to see when the new client becomes available. Hopefully the new version will also address the 'Unknown' file status issues that seem to have been introduced in 4.x.

Randy Wilson
Dallas, TX