Vault Client Merge File Problem

dwayne_davis · Post by **dwayne_davis** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:30 pm

I'm seeing some strange behavior with the Vault GUI when trying to 'Get Latest' or 'Checkout' a renegade file.

I used to (as in earlier today) see output in the Messages pane such as:

Code: Select all

[7/27/2004 12:16:44 PM] Could not automatically merge G:\Source\NBG\FlashClient\FlashClient.flp due to conflicts

When this happened, I would then 'Checkout'. The file status would change to 'Needs Merge', and I could right-click and merge the file, resolving conflicts manually.

This was strange because some of my coworkers did not get these options. Vault would happily overwrite their local changes without any notification whatsoever. This happened even if they had 'Attempt automatic merge' checked. The file is overwritten (not merged) and local changes are lost. Furthermore, their messages pane would display nothing out of the ordinary.

I am now seeing similar behavior, after taking a lunch break. I made no changes on the client options. The server has not changed. When I try to 'Get Latest' on a renegade file, nothing happens. The messages state that it has finished but there are no errors and the local file has not changed. I am setting the 'Attempt automatic merge' checkbox.

When I try a 'Check Out', essentially the same thing happens. The file is checked out and the status becomes 'Edited'. However, the merge doesn't seem to be correct. The version of the file I have checked out is unchanged from what the renegade version was - all changes that have occurred in the repository are lost.

The file types this is occuring with (*.flp - flash project files, which is actually xml) has been set to mergeable. Clients have been restarted since this change.

We're quite puzzled as to what has happened. Why is Vault not noticing conflicts? Why are the automatic merges overwriting the repository changes?

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 3:57 pm

I am puzzled as well. This process is pretty standard, and we haven't heard of other reports like it.

Is the remote (server) version reported in the client correct?

If I understand the problem, you have a renegade file locally, the version on the server is greater than the version on the client, and you do a Get, and the changes between the client's version and the server's version are not reflected in the working folder copy.

Once this happens, does it continue to happen, or is it intermittent?

dwayne_davis · Post by **dwayne_davis** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:03 pm

Here's an update to our problem. It turns out that the merge status appears to be working correctly on my machine, but not on my coworkers.

When I had thought that nothing had changed from coming back after lunch, one thing changed; I connected to a different Vault server. We currently have 2 servers (one which I am shutting down) because of another support issue that we've had. I'm taking the older one off-line - there seems to be something wrong with it that keeps vault from working correctly.

So, the symptoms I described above are correct for coworkers - when trying 'Get Latest' or 'Checkout' they are not being notified of any conflict. However, the file is not being merged but overwritten.

When I try these commands, I see in the message pane 'Could not automatically merge ...'. If I try 'Check Out' I see this message and the file status becomes 'Needs merge'. At that point I can merge the file.

Sorry for the confusion.

dwayne_davis · Post by **dwayne_davis** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:09 pm

Duplicating this is interesting.

In order to duplicate it, we're using an older version of the file. We hand-copy this file into the working folder for Vault. Vault is reporting the local and remote versions the same, currently version 31, which is correct for the server.

Then we try 'Get Latest' on the file. On my machine, this process does not work and the client reports "Could not automatically merge xxxx". The status of the file stays as renegade.

On my coworkers machine, it appears to work fine, the status of the file remains as renegade but no error message appears in the message pane.

Similar behavior is exhibited when trying 'Check Out'.

On my machine, I get the same warnings as above, the status of the file becomes 'Needs Merge' I can then manually merge the file and clear the status.

On my coworkers machine, no message appears in the message pane. The merge appears to work, but it doesn't merge - all changes from the server are lost instead.

dan · Post by **dan** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 4:24 pm

dwayne_davis wrote: In order to duplicate it, we're using an older version of the file. We hand-copy this file into the working folder for Vault. Vault is reporting the local and remote versions the same, currently version 31, which is correct for the server.

Doing a hand copy isn't a good test for this, because the local version is still the same as the server version, so the client thinks you've simply edited the file locally on top of the most recent version, even though the edits would correspond to an actual version on the server. This would probably cause confusion later as to what is supposed to be merged and what isn't.

Note that if the local and remote versions are the same, a Get Latest is not supposed to doing anything, since there is no newer version on the server to merge into the local file.

A good way to test merging is to go to history for a file and get a previous version of a file. Verify the client version reports that it is at the version that you got from history. Then edit the local file, and then do a Get Latest - it will then attempt to merge the file.

If you are able to reproduce a problem this way, send the exact steps so I can try to reproduce it here.

Thanks,

dwayne_davis · Post by **dwayne_davis** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 5:03 pm

We are doing something very similar to this.

The local version that we are using is an older version, not the current version in the repository. We have some changes then made in this version.

I will try and duplicate this as you suggested and see if we still get the errors. What I find is strange is that my client behaves differently than other clients, but perhaps something else is going on.