Witadmin "There is a problem on the server. Contact your Team Foundation Sever administrator."

Question

Hello,

We have just upgraded to TFS 2012 Update 1, which was very problematic, but that's another topic, I attempt to modify a TFS work item using witadmin and I get this error:

"There is a problem on the server.  Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator."

Here's the command:

witadmin importwtid /collection:http://slc-tfs2/8080/tfs/ld /p:<projectname> /f:<xml file>

I am the administrator but I have no idea where to look.

I have installed the latest version of TFS Tools, restarted my computer and still see the problem.

I get the same problem when I using the Tools/Process Editor/Import work items.

What I'm trying to do is to rename the states.  Currently the state name is Story1-New and I want to change it to New.

If I could figure out how to attach the file to this thread, I would do so.

- Bruce

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Bruce

Answer 1

Bruce,

  Are you running with elevated privileges? If your computer has UAC you will need to "Run as Administrator" for these commands to work.

-MrHinsh

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Answer 2

MrHinsh,

Yes, I am the administrator and this has been working for a long time prior to upgrading to the Update 1 being applied today.

- Bruce

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Bruce

Answer 3

Bruce,

 Can you export the WITD and send it to me?

-MrHinsh

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Answer 4

Done, via e-mail.

It's interesting that the witadmin with the /v option shows no problems but without the /v option, it gives the above-referenced error.

I've opened a support incident to see if they MS Support can determine what the problem is here.

- Bruce

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Bruce

Answer 5

Fixed - how?  I don't know.  By the time I got a call from MS support, the problem had gone away.  I'm wondering if it didn't have something to do with the Analysis Cube not being updated. 

So, if you get this error, rebuild your Warehouse and the Analysis Cube and perhaps it may go away for you too.

- Bruce

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Bruce

Answer 6

Got the same problem while trying to import some WITD at a customers site.

Situation:

1. customer sends "TFS 2010 SP1" exported WITD for modification (productive system - TFS 2010 SP1)
2. modification was done and tested under "TFS 2010 SP1" dev machine (dev system 1 – TFS 2010 SP1)
3. customer upgrades from "TFS 2010 SP1" to "TFS 2012 Update 1" (productive system – upgrade to TFS 2012 Update 1)
4. try to import modified WITD on "TFS 2012 Update 1 -> discribed error  (productive system – now TFS 2012 Update 1 – project in upgraded collection)

-          exporting und reimporting WITD (w/o any modification) on "TFS 2012 Update 1" works fine (productive system – TFS 2012 Update 1 – project in upgraded collection)

-          import of the same WITD on "TFS 2012 RTM" also succeeds w/o problem (dev system 2 – TFS 2012 RTM – new project)

So we have two differences / possible causes:

a) "TFS 2012 RTM" <> "TFS 2012 Update 1"

b) New (blank) team project <> upgraded team project (w/o enabled 2012 features and new config files)

The customer has done the upgrade at least 7 days ago, so the warehouse/cube should already been actualized.

Any idea?

Answer 7

My problem is still not solved. In the meanwhile I've done the following tests

c) importing the WITD on a fresh TFS 2012 Update 1 installation -> works fine

d) importing the WITD on a collection at the customers installation (TFS 2012 Update 1) -> works fine

e) full rebuild of the warehouse/cube for the upgraded collection -> problems still resists

So the problem only exists in the productive environment of our customer. Something in the upgraded collection causes the failure on the WITD import.

Answer 8

Running http://local:8080/tfs/_oi/ on the TFS 2012.1 server shows -1 as result for the corresponding Update Command. The details of the log entry shows the parameter “Exception Message”=“Attempting to set a non-NULL-able column's value to NULL”.

In the Event Viewer on the TFS 2012.1 server under “\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft-Team Foundation Server\Debug” an Exception containing “Filing a WER application report for exception: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Attempting to set a non-NULL-able column's value to NULL. at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Framework.Server.TeamFoundationSqlResourceComponent.MapException(SqlException ex, QueryExecutionState queryState) at …” was logged.

Found other threads at MS Connect and MSDN describing the same problem, all not answered

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/774218/not-able-to-create-a-new-team-project-based-on-the-agile-template

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/tfsversioncontrol/thread/87363801-738e-4efc-ae1e-f43ab260cb6b

Seems to be a failure handling problem between TFS 2012.1 and SQL server.

Answer 9

Solution found, it was indeed a SQL Server problem, look at

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2671078/en-us

After applying CU 14 for "SQL Server 2008 R2" the import of the WITD works fine.