Follow-up to Previous Post

[alovhaug]

A few weeks ago I posted here regarding a problem I had when I first started using Vault. I had checked in several files from the VS.NET IDE, but that check-in was apparently not successful, as all my version numbers still showed "1", and when I opened up the project again, it pulled version 1 from the server and overwrote my changes. I had been using remote desktop to access my computer at the time, and I speculated that it may have been the culprit.

I am now fairly confident that the problem was related to the state of my solution after I had added it to Vault. After reviewing the other projects in the solution that were not changed, I discovered that most of the files in those projects showed a status of Unknown in Vault. I suspect that the files that were messed up also were at that status, and thus weren't behaving properly. When I removed all references to source control, deleted the solution from Vault and tried to add the solution again, these files again showed a status of unknown.

Just to be clear, I am using Vault 2.0, and was handling all check-in and check-out operations from the VS.NET 2003 IDE. I also added the solution to Vault via the VS.NET menu option to add the solution to source code control.

This particular solution has a strange physical directory tree, so I'm not sure if that was part of the problem. The solution has a couple of projects that go down one path (d:\data\customer\solution\project1, d:\data\customer\solution\project2, etc.) and also some projects that in a different path (d:\data\randd\components\project3, d:\data\randd\components\project4, etc.) I suspect that Vault didn't like this particular structure.

What seems to be working for me is that instead of adding the entire solution, I am now only adding one project at a time. I use the add selected project to source code control menu option. I never add the solution to source control, just the projects (from the VS.NET IDE).

Also, my #1 tip is: check the status of your files in Vault after any major operations (like adding the files to source code control)! Beware of any statuses of Unknown. Solve the unknown status problem BEFORE doing any other source code operations. #2 tip: Backup your files before major operations so you can easily get back to them if you run into a problem.

I haven't run into any further problems with Vault, although I'm still not feeling the same level of confidence as when I started. But hopefully that will return as I become more familiar with the product.

Hopefully this assists someone in the future.