Flare 8 locks up doing source control functions

[chuck_aruba]

I have a brand new installation of Flare 8 (although I'm working in the eval mode while licensing issues are getting straightened out) on a brand-spankin'-new Windows 7 Enterprise notebook. We use Perforce, and I've installed the latest SCC plug in from the perforce site, per instructions.

However, when trying to perform several source control functions, Flare simply locks up. It doesn't show as "Not Responding" in Task Manager though. For example, I just tried to add a new (graphics) file to the depot. I got the "Check In" dialog box (which in itself is wrong; it should be to Add the file to the revision list as a Mark for Add)--and then I cannot do anything. Nothing responds. I cannot select the "Keep Checked Out" check box, I cannot enter any text, I can't even cancel. When I Alt-Tab through my open windows, Flare does not come up; I can get to it only by manually closing windows in front of it.

This also happens when I try to create a cache, whatever that is.

The only way out is to go into Task Manager and end the Flare task.

Any ideas?

[sfoley]

...
Any ideas?

I've used three different revision control systems (RCS) with Flare in the last few years, and they all seem to either (a) take three times as long as the native RCS client to do anything, or (b) freeze Flare. I suggest using the standalone P4 client to check out/commit files, and avoid Flare's RCS integration entirely.

Also, file a bug with MadCap about the performance and the freezing.

[Msquared]

I'm in a very similar position. I'm really keen to use source control that is integrated with Flare, because it rapidly gets to be a nightmare if you try to manage the Flare files directly in an revision control system, especialy Perforce. We used to do this with our Robohelp files, and anything other than a straight edit to an existing file was almost impossible to replicate accurately in Perforce unless you did it immediately and carefully. When your projects have been going for a while, you will find yourself wanting to delete, move or rename files, and that was just impossible.

For example, Perforce won't let you delete a file unless you DO NOT have it checked out. So this means reverting the checkout for the deleted file (which puts it back in your repository, after Flare has deleted it), then remembering to delete it immediately in Perforce before you forget. If you have several deletions, or aren't the most methodical person in the world (and not all my SMEs are), this is almost guaranteed to go wrong sooner or later.

Also, for file renames, Perforce uses a delete/add pair, with a linked history, which is even more complicated to replicate in Perforce. I actually gave up renaming or moving files in Robohelp because every single time I did it, something got missed, despite my best efforts to work extremely carefully from a checklist. Is the tool working for me, or am I working for the tool?

I was very happy with my initial experiments with Flare and Perforce. Then I too realised that Flare 8 keeps hanging for projects under Perforce.

So, having had a few days of glorious hope for better things, I'm now in deep despair. I have no idea what to do for the best. I really don't want to go back to the bad old days using Perforce outside the authoring tool.

It is worth noting that our developers also gave up trying to integrate Perforce with their development environment (Visual Studio). They've tried several plug-ins and they are all buggy. They tell me they think the main problem is with the specification of the Microsoft SCC API (which both Flare and the Perforce plug-in should be written against). So perhaps the answer is to move to one of the revision control systems that is directly integrated with Flare, and hence doesn't use the Micrsosft SCC API?

[Msquared]

I have an answer, buried deep in this forum post, which has several useful gems about using Flare with Perforce.
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... 099#p54099 . Thank you so much Andrew Heard!

If Flare locks up (I'll add some info about things that seem to cause lock-ups, and how you can avoid them later), then you will not be able to open that project again unless you unbind it from Perforce, and rebind it. I knew about some of the things that seem to cause guaranteed lockups, but this was the reason behind the aparently random ones.

To unbind the project from Perforce, open the project, and at the Perforce Open Connection dialog, click Cancel. This dialog may come back several times - I suspect Flare is trying to do several operations that need the connection - keep calm and click Cancel each time. Then go to Project > Project Properties, select the Source Control tab, and again, click Cancel at each Perforce Open Connection dialog.

Eventually, you will be able to select Unbind and then Bind. All done!

[Msquared]

Now, as promised, three things that may cause Flare to lock up (and some tips to avoid them). Also, below, find out why Source Control > Refresh is your friend!

1) In Flare 8, if Flare askes you if you want to build the source control cache, select No. If you select Yes, Flare will hang. Other forum posts say the same thing. I am about to report a bug for this. If you have seen this, perhaps you could add your voice to mine and report it too?

I've not seen this in Flare 7, but my Flare 7 license is a fixed one and our Flare 8 license is a floating one, so without further investigation, I don't know whether this is bug specific to Flare 8 or to the floating license. I think you can live without the cache anyway. Even for the project that did successfully build the cache, Flare has trouble keeping up with the status of files that change outside Flare. I have a simple solution to this which has worked so far (it's still early days for me and Perforce, though!). Before doing any Source Control operation to a file in in Flare, right click the file, select Source Control > Refresh, then, if you want to see what Perforce really thinks of the file, Source Control > View History.

2) When you open a project in Flare 7 or 8, if you select Yes when Flare asks if you want to get the latest revisions, Flare often hangs, or appears to hang. Sometimes it doesn't, but this happens often enough for me to never click Yes here.

You can get the latest version of any specific file from within Flare (right click on the file, Source Control > Refresh, then Source Control > Get Latest Revision) or you can open the project in the Perforce client, and get the latest revisions directly from Perforce. I am getting into the habit of doing the latter in Perforce before I open a project in Flare.

Another related point that someone may find helpful. You will note that I always do Source Control > Refresh before doing anything to a file in Source Control (even viewing the history). This ensures that what Flare reports to you is up-to-date information from Perforce. Without doing this, you may get an out-of-date status from Perforce. Note that this is not the same thing as getting the latest revision from Perforce. If there is a newer version that the one you have got in your workspace, then you will still have to do Get Latest Revision to get it into your workspace (assuming you want it in your workspace at this time). But if there is a newer version, and you do not Refresh, you may not even see it.

3) Setting Enable Background Checks in Tools > Options > Source Control (Flare 7) File >Options > Source Control (Flare 8 ) also causes Flare to hang sometimes. I've not done any further investigation on this yet. I just decided to leave well alone.