MadCap Software Forums

I have existing projects in a Subversion repository that I want to use in Flare 7, with the new SVN support. Despite having these checked out locally already (using TortoiseSVN) it seems that the only way to get Flare to work with the repository is to remove my local copy and import the projects afresh out of the Subversion repository. OK, I can live with that as a one-time annoyance.

However, every time I try to import any of these projects into Flare from the repository, using the Import Project from Source Control Wizard, and the svn protocol, Flare hangs part way through, in the "Progress" dialog box. On this last attempt I got 1017 lines of "Retrieved: <filename>" messages before it hung. Clicking Cancel on the dialog box does nothing, you have to kill Flare in Task Manager when this happens.

I have managed to import one very small project, with only a couple of hundred files, but nothing of any size.

What's the secret for getting through a larger import without Flare hanging?

OK, the solution seems to be: patience.

I left Flare sitting overnight - apparently hanging & unresponsive - and in the morning it had finished importing the files from Subversion. The pattern is the same every time. The import gets about two-thirds the way through really quickly: the "Retrieved: <filename>" messages fill the dialog box in double-quick time but then suddenly stop.

So, although it's annoying if you want to get stuff done, my advice if you experience this is just to leave your computer on, go away and do something else for a few hours and eventually Flare should come back to life.


Once you've finally got your files checked out, SVN support in Flare 7 seems to work just like you'd expect. Much better than the PushOK plugin we were previously using. Good job Madcap!

I had the same problem with binding to Subversion. Lacking your patience, I aborted after 2 hours. On looking at the repository, I found that all of the project was in fact present, but Flare reported that the project was not bound. Luckily, Flare can be "fooled" by editing the project file and adding the appropriate information. It seems (fingers crossed) that this is a safe workaround. (But I've still reported it.)

I have a similar problem with binding to a subversion repository. I was able to import the project into subversion, and I can use subversion through the TortoiseSVN windows shortcut menu but Flare 7 seems to just consider the project "unbound". I've tried, through the project properties, to bind the project, but Flare 7 just fails to connect. I am using the https protocol and using port 443, so my subversion url is https:\\mycomputer:443 .Flare 7 just gives me a message that "https:\\mycomputer (http 200 is ok)". Not kidding, that is the dialog that I get from Flare and nothing else.

I can easily connect to the repository through any web browser, just not Flare 7. At this point I think I'm giving up on subversion working inside of Flare and just using the windows shortcut menu. I'm happy to investigate further if the Madcap staff would like more information, I'm just not hopeful that I'll hear back from them.

rkashden wrote:I can easily connect to the repository through any web browser, just not Flare 7. At this point I think I'm giving up on subversion working inside of Flare and just using the windows shortcut menu. I'm happy to investigate further if the Madcap staff would like more information, I'm just not hopeful that I'll hear back from them.

I am sure they will get back to you when you send them the information. And if not, let me know.

I think it's worth mentioning that MadCap acknowledges that there are serious issues with the new SVN integration in Flare 7, and are working on an eventual update (I was offered the chance to join a list of Beta users for the Beta that will be out in a few months' time). The following is a summary of the kind of issues we have had (we are all new users of Flare in our company, having transitioned from unmanageable Word docs!):

• - import from or (large) check-in to SVN hangs as described above (we have around 800 files from the Word docs import)
  - merging of committed conflicts is buggy:
  -- when auto-merge is used, Flare tends to overwrite (not merge) earlier changes by other users in certain situations (when earlier changes by other user are in same paragraph, etc.)
  -- manual merge tool is currently unusable (displays conflicts fine, but there is no way I have found to specify which version you wish to keep)
  -- strange error messages (of the form: 'merge completed ok', then 'unable to commit due to conflicts', etc.) after merge operation takes place
  - general confusion in UI & documentation regarding use of 'check-out' operation for SVN, since a default SVN repository does not control which files are checked out (unlike MS Visual SourceSafe), but rather relies on merging changes and intelligently resolving conflicts. It's frustrating that files that are not 'checked out' are marked as read only in the local file system, meaning that if I want to do a global find and replace using an external XML tool, I have to 'check out' all files in Flare first, to make them writable, which can take a while (and, as far as I can tell, has no impact on the state of play in the SVN repository). This does make sense for SourceSafe-type SCM systems, but (in my opinion) not for SVN, GIT, etc.
  - buggy behaviour after checking in (committing) changes; sometimes the file can no longer be checked in or out, and Flare needs to be restarted or the source cache refreshed.

Sometimes, when thing get a little too crazy, I revert to TortoiseSVN (e.g. for large check-outs / check-ins), and if Flare starts to get confused, I close it down, manually delete the 'LocalCache.xxxxxx' folder in the <Project>/SourceControl directory and restart Flare, which now offers to re-create the cache, usually solving the sync problems (but not always - I've had to delete my local project folder and re-import the project at least once). If anyone has found any workarounds to the above issues, I'd be glad to know.

This all sounds very negative, but I just want to highlight the issues I've seen and mostly reported, for others in our position. I'm confident that MadCap will get SVN integration silky smooth eventually, and most operations can always be done in TortoiseSVN if necessary - it's just less convenient.
In most other respects, we are very happy with Flare. We are still working on formatting imported topics (no PDF output yet), and I still have to learn the ins and outs of image management using Capture and translations using Lingo, but we are confident in our choice of replacement for MS Word.

Alan

Same problems when BINDING the source to SVN repository on WIndows 7 64 bit with 8GM ram. Project size is 5800 files in 340 folders (268mb) - Content and Project folders only.
Repeated attempts always seems to hang at same location.
Smaller project seems ok.

We are trying a WORK AROUND for this sick SVN FLARE puppy. We will use Tortoise to manage the files independent of Flare. Flare happily lets us edit since all it needed was files that are not read-only. Painful but a work around. Can't wait two days for this import to load.

Yes, like jforsyth said, this is more difficult workaround, but until Flare fixes it (and I agree, they probably will), we'll have to do it this way.

We're having issues similar to this with a smaller (90) MB project. The writer involved waited 5 hours before stopping the initial binding effort.

Performance for large projects seems poor. Are there any numbers on this? How long should it take to bind a project that is 90 to 100 MB? An hour? More? Less?

64mb took less than an hour for me.
I submitted our 250mb project to Madcap who said they reproduced the problem. They passed it to development as bug 43765 in case we ever get to see it as fixed.

Thanks. That's a start. I'm guessing our project should take less than an hour to bind.

But somewhere between 64 MB and 250 MB the binding process breaks. If I can pin this down more, I"ll update this post.

feitelberg wrote:But somewhere between 64 MB and 250 MB the binding process breaks. If I can pin this down more, I"ll update this post.

And make sure you submit a bug report when you do. Or create it now and mention the range at which you think it becomes a problem.

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but this still appears to be an issue in Flare 8. I am running 8.1.2 and I am also hanging on importing a project in SVN (about 400MB). We use flare and svn+ssh. I know it is doing something because I had plink windows popping up all over the place (we use passwordless SSH) until I figured out how to suppress them. It looks like flare is opening a new separate connection to the svn server for each file *after* it downloads all the files locally. I don't know if flare is grabbing metadata on each file or what, but whatever it is doing it is doing it very inefficiently.

So in essence, The import grabs all the files, Flare "hangs" (it is not really hung, just working at a glacial pace) doing "something" incrementally. I can't leave this thing sitting for 12 hours or whatever until flare gets done doing whatever it is doing. Tortoise SVN knows the files are bound as soon as they are downloaded from the server. How can I trick flare into knowing the files are bound?

Edit: Tortoise and SVN Specs:
TortoiseSVN 1.7.4, Build 22459 - 64 Bit , 2012/01/13 12:57:07
Subversion 1.7.2,
apr 1.4.5
apr-utils 1.3.12
neon 0.29.6
OpenSSL 1.0.0e 6 Sep 2011
zlib 1.2.5

Chris,

How are you importing?

I have had better success with big imports by not using import from source control to specify a path to a bound project. You can basically do it backwards - get everything up to SVN (or check out and existing flare project from SVN) and bind to the checked-out project so that no SVN server traffic is generated by flare.

First, make sure you know the path to the project if it is already in SVN, or where you will put it if it is in SVN:

Provider name: Subversion
Database: svn://<svr>/<repo_name>
Database folder svn://<svr>/<repo_name>/<path to flare proj>


[if needed] Create flare project
[if needed] Delete unversioned folders, not forgetting project/users
upload flare folder into SVN using tortoise (repo browser - add folder) to svn://<svr>/<repo_name>/<path to flare proj>
check out entire project using tortoise
open checked-out project with flare
use project-properties-source control to do the binding
flare will build the source-control cache.

Just in case, verify the following:

- check in project file if checked out
- undo checkout for all the pending checkins
- Add the analyzer, output, source control and project/user's folder to tortoise' ignore list. these files should have a blue question mark icon showing that they are unversioned. If not, remove them from svn.

You should be all set