VS Reports: Checked out by someone else or in another place

Question

 

Hi,

 

I copied my workspace local folder the other week (for backup / precautionary measure) using just a file copy. I then did a full get from the team project. Now in VS 2008 I am seeing projects that are mark with a small icon of a person instead of a padlock, indicating the file is Checkedout by someone else or in another place.

 

I've used TF STATUS ..., but this doesn't report the file being checked out by anyone.

 

Can anyone offer any help?

 

Thanks

 

Graham

Answer 1

Hello,

If I remember correctly this is a bug that is causing us to display person icon instead of paddlock, when pending change exist in workspace OR in shelveset. This code is used only for displaying icon in solution explorer, so executing tf status, opening SCE etc. will show you always only pending changes existing in workspaces (correct behavior).

We are planning to fix this in future release of TFS.

Answer 2

 

Thanks for the reply. At least I know the reason now.

 

Just to clarify: This is a TFS bug, not a VS bug?

Answer 3

It is a TFS bug. 

 

Specifically, the code TFS uses to get status from the server has a single bit returned from the server to indicate if there is a pending change on the file in a different workspace or shelveset.  If that bit is set, then VS will show the "Person" glyph to indicate the file is checked out elsewhere.  A fix for this is not likely in the near future because to compute whether the change is in a different workspace vs. a shelveset would be quite expensive and slow down all of our status acquisition calls.  Also, one could argue that a shelveset symbolically represents a different workspace, and that the glyph is techically correct.  I don't personally agree with that, but it is a valid argument.

 

--Ben

 

Answer 4

 

Wouldn't a shelveset contain checked out code a lot of the time? Mine do, therefore I too don't necessarily agree with that argument either.

 

Graham

Answer 5

Maybe some extra (useful) information about this bug.

This behavior only occurs when you shelve a work item and check it in again.

By the way, the Shelve option is a nasty one if you ask me.

When you do not unshelve, your work items, but check them in, the shelveset still exists, and when you unshelve after, in my case, 2 weeks, all your work from the last 2 weeks on the affected work items is lost.

Only solution is to do an undo checkout, but then the shelve keeps existing.

Answer 6

 

Thanks for the update Paul.

Answer 7

Hi LordTitan,

There is a way to get rid of the ShelveSet: right click one of the sources and choose 'Unshelve Pending Changes...'. In the window that follows you click the Delete button to delete the ShelveSet. I suppose this is only possible for ShelveSets you created yourself.
After deleting the ShelveSet and re-opening the solution, the padlock icon appears again.

Hope this helps (and yes I know this is a topic of over one year ago).

Regards

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Peter Elzinga

Answer 8

Seems to be the same bug in VS2010 Beta 2 - I got a few files on a Codeplex shelf, and it's displayed with the "checked out" person icon. I've tried for an hour now to find the checked out files using tf.exe with status, workspace etc. :)

Answer 9

JoDan,

this was bug in the server, not client. I think it has been fixed in TFS 2010 but I highly doubt Codeplex was upgraded yet.

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Michal Malecki

Answer 10

I think beside synchronize the padlock icon in TFS, VS, and shelves, we also need the ability to easily export, or even get a quick view of, who is current checking out files. 

At the current moment, I have to stroll through several hundreds files, buried deep under several sub folders, within source control explorer, to find one single checked-out file, to know who is checking it out.  This is not a pleasant task to-do when you have to do it more than several time a day.

I think anything that could save man hours, benefit mankind, be quickly implemented, Microsoft should not wear marketing cap to set priority.  Only people who wear developer hat would understand the pain, the pressure, and the little nitty gritty thing that cause frustration, when developing software.

Answer 11

Frank,

you could do that even in VS2005 using commandline:

tf.exe status /users:* $/tp1 /r

You can do this inside VS if you install Powertools.

Good luck

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Michal Malecki