Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

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jetboy2k
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Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by jetboy2k »

I am running into a MAJOR issue in Doc-To-Help. I am working on shared projects in D2H, and for some reason I am losing the TFS connection, so I cannot use the Team Authoring functionality to check out the projects and then check them in if I make changes (which I don't do, since making them on the local copy isn't adequate for the team). While I don't know what the cause is, here is what is happening:
  • 1. In D2H, I open a project, click on Team Authoring, right-click on the project, and check it out
    2. I make changes to the documents
    3. In D2H, I click on Team Authoring, right-click on the project, and check it in
    4. At a later date, I open the project again in D2H
    5. I click on Team Authoring
    6. Instead of the Team Authoring tab opening, I get the Team Authoring Wizard:
    Step6.jpg
    7. If I try to connect to the project through the Team Connection Wizard, it tells me that the project is already mapped, which is expected.
    8. I delete the file and complete the steps to connect to the project through the Team Connection Wizard.
    9. The Team Connection Wizard asks me if I want to create the project folder locally, and I say yes.
    10. I click Next to create the project.
    11. I get an error message that displays a list of Object 'topic name' for property tocEntry.topic is not found:
    Step11.jpg
    (and to clarify, the error message does not actually say '{topic name removed}' - I removed the topic names to ensure that I wasn't displaying any sensitive or proprietary information)
Some additional information:

The topics that "cannot be found" are topics that have been conditionally set to Printed Media platform - we are using D2H to generate HTML, and we don't want these topics in the online view.
I am not accessing or checking the projects, or any related folders, in or out in TFS - I am doing all work in D2H.
I'm using D2H v3, and MS Visual Studio Professional 2013, version 12.0.40629.00 Update 5

If anyone else has encountered this issue, and/or has any insight, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
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SKamprowski
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Location: Germany

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by SKamprowski »

Hi,

I suggest to start at the beginning, means your items 3/4.
Did you close your project after step 3?
Or what else makes it necessary to open the project again (step 4)?
When you open your working copy of the project again you should immediately have the tab for Team Authoring, still not necessarily opened.
If you don't see it may be helpful to know where your TFS is located, as well where your working copy of the project is located.

Kind regards,
Sabine
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
jetboy2k
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Posts: 14
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 8:05 am

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by jetboy2k »

SKamprowski, thank you.

I have not been closing my projects after I complete step 3.

What makes it necessary to re-open a project is simply the need to do additional formatting changes to the document, in order to get the desired HTML layout. Some of these are very large documents, and it's not possible to complete all of the formatting changes in one day.

You are correct regarding the Team Authoring tab - for projects that do not lose their connection/synchronization with TFS, I do get the tab as soon as I open the project.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say it would be helpful to know where my TFS is located vs. where my working copy is located. I do have a local copy of the TFS store, and there are copies of the project files in that local copy, but I am only accessing the projects through D2H, and then checking them in and out (again, only via the D2H menus), so my local store should only ever have a copy of the latest version, which I have confirmed is the case. Can you clarify what you're suggesting I investigate here?
SKamprowski
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:25 am
Location: Germany

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by SKamprowski »

Ok, that makes it bit clearer.

So, I now suggest to work with this Team Authoring tab. You may see what files have been checked out and continue your work with documents checked out, or check out other documents for changes.
Before leaving for a rest you may check in everything that you checked out, in order to have a backup, close the project, and D2H.
I suggest to close the project at least once a day.

Kind regard
Sabine Kamprowski
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
jetboy2k
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Posts: 14
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 8:05 am

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by jetboy2k »

Skamprowski, thank you again.

The core issue, unfortunately, is that I lose the Team Authoring tab, and I am unable to get it back for those projects that have this issue. As near as I can tell, somehow my files are not getting synched properly when I check them back in by right-clicking on the project top level folder in the Team Authoring tab and selecting Check out for edit from the drop-down menu.

I should have also clarified that when I'm working on a project, I check out the entire project, so no one else can work on any part of it while I'm working on it.

So it looks like I'm back at square one, but I do appreciate your time and assistance. I do actually check my projects in any time I know it's going to be more than 30 minutes before I work on them again, but I don't close them in D2H before closing D2H itself, which I will start doing going forward. I think that I will also start using the "Get Latest Version" functionality before checking a project out again, and hope that that will help to prevent the problem in the future as well.

Thanks again.
jetboy2k
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Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by jetboy2k »

FYI, for anyone who's interested, the problem turned out to be the fact that I wasn't generating (rebuilding) a new table of contents based on changes to topics being included or excluded in the source document. In some instances the changes to topic status were the result of changes I made, so one could argue that I should have known to rebuild the table of contents. However, in many instances, that was not the case, and when the project was provided to me, the previous editor had rebuilt the ToC before checking it in to TFS and making it available for others to check out. Even with that done, however, for some reason the ToC was not synched when I would open the project, and even if I'd understood the requirement to do the rebuild, I would not have expected to have to do it myself, since I was checking the project out from TFS.

So I know now to check the ToC in the Contents pane and, if necessary, rebuild it but I have to say in all honesty that I see this as a major bug in the product. Losing the ability to manage projects in TFS because of a change made to the source document is not a good design, and at a minimum I'd say that D2H should provide the user with a message saying something along the lines of, "Before you check the project back in to TFS, do you want to rebuild the ToC? Failing to do so may result in D2H being unable to find topics listed in the ToC and breaking connectivity to the project in TFS."
Rob Diaz
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Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by Rob Diaz »

I have to agree with jetboy2k on the major bug front. I have been seeing problems with topic IDs and ToC not being able to be propagate through TFS checkins/checkouts. So, the dev (editor) machine and the build (production) machine do not always seem to be in sync. In fact, today I had to force TFS to re-download the entire project, even though all files were "up to date". Without doing that, I was missing the two dozen new topic IDs that had been checked in.

As I posted in a separate thread, there's something wrong with the overall TFS support in Doc-to-Help right now. At this point, I'm trying to pull all of the projects out of the Team Build process and just use TFS directly to handle check in and check out. It's an extra step, but it seems to be working better (mostly) than the Team Build tab is working.
SKamprowski
Sr. Propeller Head
Posts: 277
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2015 8:25 am
Location: Germany

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by SKamprowski »

Hi,

I strongly recommend to inform MadCap service about your issues.

Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
Kind regards,
Sabine Kamprowski
DocToHelp MVP (by ComponentOne)
jetboy2k
Propeller Head
Posts: 14
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 8:05 am

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by jetboy2k »

Rob Diaz wrote:In fact, today I had to force TFS to re-download the entire project, even though all files were "up to date". Without doing that, I was missing the two dozen new topic IDs that had been checked in.
Rob, how do you force TFS to re-download the project? I was never able to do so once my connection was broken, and we'd end up having to quite literally reload the first published version to TFS for me to be able to manage it in TFS again (fortunately, after the first couple of times I was smart enough to save my edited Word docs, so I wasn't losing work, but, man, what a pain)?

Thanks.
Rob Diaz
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Posts: 14
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:09 am

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by Rob Diaz »

jetboy2k wrote:Rob, how do you force TFS to re-download the project? I was never able to do so once my connection was broken, and we'd end up having to quite literally reload the first published version to TFS for me to be able to manage it in TFS again (fortunately, after the first couple of times I was smart enough to save my edited Word docs, so I wasn't losing work, but, man, what a pain)?

Thanks.
Hi there. I'm sorry for my delayed reply - I didn't get a notification that you had posted this.

What I did is used Visual Studio. I went to the TFS source control Explorer, navigated to the proper folder. Right click on it and choose "Advanced" then choose "Get Specific Version". Choose the version (likely "Latest version") then click the "Overwrite all files even if they are up to date". This tells TFS to just pull it all down no matter what.

At this point, the only way we can function with Doc-To-Help is to use Visual Studio to handle all check-ins and check-outs. We had to remove team build from the equation completely.
jetboy2k
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Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 8:05 am

Re: Losing TFS connections in Doc-To-Help

Post by jetboy2k »

Rob ,first off, apologies on my part for my delayed response - I was OOF from August 1st through 15th and just saw this.

Second off, thank you very much, this is very helpful information. I don't anticipate running into the problem again now that I know what I have to do to avoid it, but in the event that I'm unable to connect to TFS from a D2H project, I'll definitely try this out.
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