MadCap Software Forums

I have tried to bind a new project to Perforce. I did not succeed although I have tried all that I could think of.
I have also contacted MadCap Support. They had a look at it and even made a remote session but could not help me in the end.

So, my last idea is to ask in the Forum if anyone has tried to bind Flare 11 to Perforce and succeeded? If so, are there any hints for me?

Here are the steps that I have tried basically (I tried many more - e.g. import - but also without success):
1) I start by opening the project properties
2) I choose "Bind project" and fill out the dialog
Notes: There is only one depot available, I can't create a new one, so I choose the given "depot". After selecting the path in Perforce, the displayed path has an additional "DE" which I remove.
3) The progess dialog shows up, displaying the correct path. 4) After a long while (app. 0,5 h for a very small project), the progress dialog disappears and the project properties show up again. Note: The properties dialog fills out very slowly (first it is empty and then one after the other the contents appear). But in the end, the dialog still is inoperable. I have to kill the Flare process.
5) I start the Flare project again with the stored binding. I am asked to get the newest files from Perforce. An error message appears and Flare hangs completely after closing the message! The files in Perforce are NOT checked in (nothing happened on the Perforce side.
6) I edit the Flare project file manually to exchange the values for the database and the folder and start the Flare project again. This time I am asked for a Perforce login, BUT the user name is "ilya.rudenko" which I do not know and even CANNOT CHANGE.

No replies so far - seems like no one has a solution...
This corresponds with my results after weeks of having contact with MadCap support and a lot of try and error! It's definitely not working at all, at least in my Perforce environment (one Perforce depot together with the development).

MadCaps final reply:
"At this point it looks like binding through Flare V11 is not going to be possible based on the depot and parameters established through P4V. The API being used to integrate with Perforce is very basic, and when you try to bind to a depot, Flare associates the project with a user. When things are very basic, that user should be your own user, but if the depot was created a long time ago, and other people have been associated, there is no way to edit the user that Flare finds when attempting to bind. I have submitted a bug (#101494) regarding this behavior.
I know that the developer (who has been involved in trying to resolve some of these issues) is hoping to be able to change some of these behaviors in a future version, but with Flare V11 this cannot be changed. At this point, the best plan would be to continue binding the project in P4V (outside of Flare) and maintaining the check ins and outs outside of Flare. "

Just wanted to let you know the status in case someone else tries to do the same!

Jörg Wagner

We've had similar problems and have had to resort to the same solution as you. Checking files in and out of Perforce. This is quite inconvenient when renaming files because you then have to manually remove the original file from source and then add the newly renamed file. This causes us to lose history. I don't know how this is handled when the connector does work though so maybe this has to happen regardless.

I'm curious as to whether you've tried Flare 12 and had any better luck.

Suzette

Has there been any improvement in Perforce support in 2017r2? I am trying to get it to work, but with no luck. Filling out the Bind Project dialog is painful. The tool often hangs with no busy pointer or indication that it's doing something. There is no log (that I know of) where I can see what operations are performed, and whether they were successful or not.

The series of screen captures above, and the description, are EXACTLY what I'm running into with Flare 2017r2. I even get the weird re-authentication request for some other user ID that I can't change.

In my case, once I set up the binding, the tool hung for a few minutes and the computer was extremely unresponsive, then the following dialog appeared:
When I clicked Submit, a blank progress window appeared. After about a minute, activity began with some "conflict" message shown (but it's the first checkin?!?!):
Eventually, it completed, or so it said:
However, when I checked Perforce, there were no files checked in. And, the Pending Changes window still showed that the files needed to be added:
So, this appears completely broken.

This might be the issue. Per Flare support:

Flare 2017 is currently only compatible with Perforce 2014.1 and 2015.2

whereas we are using 2017.3.

Flare 2017 r3 was released today. One of the listed features was "Perforce Performance Improvements". I tried binding my test project to our Perforce depot again, but with the same results as above.