Projects not connecting to source control

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jonathanwells
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 1:54 am

Projects not connecting to source control

Post by jonathanwells »

Hi. I've recently installed 2018 (14.0.6738) having previously been using 11.1.2. I currently have two Flare shortcuts from my desktop, one for 2018 and one for 11.1.2.
I have 10 projects bound to tfs which open perfectly fine when accessed via 11.1.2 but when I try and open five of them in 2018 they are showing as not being bound:
When I try to open these 5 I firstly get a Windows Security login screen for TFS.
I complete this with the correct login details but the window acts as if the credentials entered are incorrect.
I have no option but to cancel out of this login screen. The projects open without first querying source control and then show a 'Failed to connect to source control' message in the Messages box at the bottom of the screen.
I click on the Project Properties to check the source control settings and again get the Windows Security tfs login screen as before.
I click Cancel and get a Madcap flare 2018 message box stating 'Failed to load persistent dialog settings: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
I click OK to this message and am shown the Project Properties dialog which contains no information for Source Control and a statement at the bottom 'Project is not bound to Source control', interestingly the 'Unbind Project' and 'Source Control' buttons are the only active buttons, why should 'Unbind Project' be active if the rest of the UI is telling me that the project is not bound to source control, it's as if the UI is getting confused.
If I click the 'Source Control' button, nothing happens.
I click 'Unbind Project' the UI changes and 'Bind Project' becomes active.
I click on 'Bind Project' and Flare seems to try and connect to the project file and copy files but after 10 minutes or so just seems to hang and I end up ending Flare 2018 via task manager.
I've tried the same procedure two or three times with one project and finally it bound in 2018 but the other four projects are still showing the 'Failed to connect' messages and I just can't get them to bind. Just to re-iterate these four projects still open fine when I access them via the 11.1.2 shortcut.

Any help on resolving this would be appreciated otherwise I will be forced to revert back to 11.1.2. Thank you.
Bambina_Mena
Propeller Head
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by Bambina_Mena »

I use Flare v12 with Subversion (SVN). The same problem is happening for me. I've existing projects that are bound to SVN. One day everything is fine re: I can check out current and check in updates. A day or two later, I open the same project and it is not bound to source control. However, Project Properties shows it as bound to SVN. Can anyone help? This only began happening with a v12 upgrade. We still have Platinum support and I'm going to contact them.
jonathanwells
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 1:54 am

Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by jonathanwells »

If you get a response then it would be good to know if there is a workaround, I'd like to upgrade to 2018 but In the meantime I've gone back to 11.1.2 as at least I feel I can trust this.
Bambina_Mena
Propeller Head
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by Bambina_Mena »

Jonathan,

I phoned MadCap Support this morning. For now, now good. The rep said, "Although I have seen this issue, I am not sure what may be causing the binding to fail frequently. I will have to do further research on this matter. I will update you with my findings."

I am going to also revert to my previous release of Flare.
Bambina_Mena
Propeller Head
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:42 pm

Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by Bambina_Mena »

See also this thread of similar problem:
viewtopic.php?f=68&t=27281&p=133313&hil ... nd#p133313

Today I found a workaround that I will use until MadCap figures this one out. BTW, my source control is Tortoise Subversion.
From Flare, right-click the target.
Select Source Control.
Select Reconnect.
After I've reconnected, I am able to commit any updates not in SVN.
jonathanwells
Propeller Head
Posts: 38
Joined: Fri Sep 24, 2010 1:54 am

Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by jonathanwells »

That's great news, thanks for sharing this. Hopefully they will now look into this more seriously. I have uninstalled 2018 now so will keep on with my 11 until things settle down a bit. Regards, Jonathan.
TR Lisa
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 100
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 8:09 am

Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by TR Lisa »

I am having a similar issue with binding. Central just stops committing files. I do the Commit in Flare, it says "committing", but it doesn't say "pushing". And then I go to Central and the latest commit is from like 3 days ago. Support had me create a new project, import the existing one, and rebind, and that works. Once. Then it loses the connection again. Clearly I'm not going to create, import, and rebind a new project every time I need to commit files. This is crippling my progress on a 1-week-away deadline for a massive, highly-visible, help system redesign launch. I tried the "reconnect" fix but I only see a Refresh option on the Source Control menu. And it seems to do nothing. MadCap is still stumped on this one. Any other workarounds or ideas to overcome this would be appreciated. I am still working with Support but I need to be writing content not troubleshooting. Oh and it seems they can't re-create the issue with my project on their end.
TR Lisa
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 100
Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 8:09 am

RESOLVED. Re: Projects not connecting to source control

Post by TR Lisa »

TR Lisa wrote:I am having a similar issue with binding. Central just stops committing files. I do the Commit in Flare, it says "committing", but it doesn't say "pushing". And then I go to Central and the latest commit is from like 3 days ago. Support had me create a new project, import the existing one, and rebind, and that works. Once. Then it loses the connection again. Clearly I'm not going to create, import, and rebind a new project every time I need to commit files. This is crippling my progress on a 1-week-away deadline for a massive, highly-visible, help system redesign launch. I tried the "reconnect" fix but I only see a Refresh option on the Source Control menu. And it seems to do nothing. MadCap is still stumped on this one. Any other workarounds or ideas to overcome this would be appreciated. I am still working with Support but I need to be writing content not troubleshooting. Oh and it seems they can't re-create the issue with my project on their end.
For better or worse, I'm not sure yet, I've resolved my binding/commit/push issue. And I don't think VPN is to blame, although I can't be sure it wasn't and isn't still a factor. What resolved my issue was just doing a pull from Central. It showed I had 7 topics with conflicts, none of which were remarkable topics. I resolved the conflicts, did another push, and suddenly all of the "missing" commits I've made since Friday, showed up in the Central commits list. And it's now been pushing my changes consistently for the last fiew hours. Weirdly, this also fixed two other really aggravating mystery issues--one where my top nav menu links worked only on the home page, and were dead links on every other page, and another where my breadcrumbs were only displaying on some pages, even though the master pages are all set up the same way. I'm glad it's working, but I'd sure like to understand why it stopped and how a simple Pull fixed all that. And for the record, I've had no reason to do a pull because I'm the only author, and my local files should always be more up to date than the remote files. And in the 7 topics that had conflicts, the local version were up to date. And mind you I've been updating dozens and dozens and dozens of topics every day.
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