Vault stability

[JohnBot]

Having recently purchased Vault I am encountering some serious problems with it. I have a reasonably large solution running in VS2010 and spread over 22 projects which is undergoing a lot of change. I am working from 2 machines (office and home). Home connects via a VPN over broadband.

The problems are as follows:

1.File/object name changes cause Vault checkins to fail. This particularly happens when an object is renamed and a new version of the object created. For example, say we have an object Invoice. I rename it to XInvoice which causes all references to be updated. I then rename the file to XInvoice.vb. I then create a new object Invoice (filename Invoice.vb). At checkin, Vault complains about a duplicate file.

2.Invalid file versions. On returning to the office (or starting work at home) I use the option Get Latest at Solution level in VS and specify Overwrite. The solution will not compile. Local files have missing changes or are completely incorrect. Following the above (real) example, after using Get Latest this morning after much work over a long weekend, the file XInvoice contains the original Invoice object (i.e. whilst the file name has changed, the object name change has been discarded). Several other files are also incorrect.

Altogether I am feeling very uneasy about the security of my work in Vault and am keeping separate file backups to move between office and home. Since I have only been using it for a short time I would like to hear any comments you may have on these issues. Many thanks

John

[lbauer]

At checkin, Vault complains about a duplicate file.

You can't have two items with the same name in a folder in the Vault Repository. If transactions are not committed to the Vault Server, they may be sitting in the pending change set, and then trying to commit two files with the same name can cause an error.

Following the above (real) example, after using Get Latest this morning after much work over a long weekend, the file XInvoice contains the original Invoice object (i.e. whilst the file name has changed, the object name change has been discarded).

It sounds like your changes were not committed (checked in) to Vault Server. When you work in the Vault Client or Visual Studio, transactions can be added to the Pending Change set, and the transaction makes changes on the Vault Client. For instance, if you don't have auto-commit enabled, you can delete a file and it's removed from the file list. But that transaction has not been commited yet, so no changes have actually affected the repository.

I'd suggest we schedule a remote assist session where I can take a closer look at your client/Visual Studio settings. Email support at sourcegear.com, Attn: Linda. Please include a link to this forum post.

[JohnBot]

Hi Linda

Thanks for the response. I am happy to conduct a remote assist session and will email you as requested.

The problem seems to lie with the name changes. The following sequence:

Friday pm: Leave Office

Sat am: At home

Get Latest. All OK.
Rename object
Rename the file containing the object
Create new object/file using the original object/filename
Checkin

Mon am: at Office

Get Latest

Gives the following results:

Renamed file shows in project
Contents of the file are the original object before it was renamed

This happened with 7 files. With the exception of the file Invoice.vb (where checkin failed with duplicate filename) all others checked in fine however the contents were incorrect after Get Latest.

Regarding the file Invoice.vb, whilst I understand that a duplicate file cannot be acceptable, the sequence of changes was such that the new Invoice.vb was created after a) rename object, b) rename file. Should I ensure that if I repeat such a sequence, I checkin the renamed object/file before creating the new file i.e. one atomic commit cannot handle a rename and new file?

Best wishes

John

[lbauer]

I'm trying to reproduce some of this behavior.

One reason for the checkout error is that you are checking in the Rename at the same time that you are adding a file with the same name as an item currently in the repository. I don't think Vault is sequencing the transactions and doing the rename first, it just looks at all permissible transactions. Committing a change set is an all or nothing proposition.

You would need to commit the rename first, then you would be able to add the file that now has the name of the file prior to the rename.