MS Project no longer synchronized with TFS Server

Question

Hello,

I was trying to publish updates to my MS Project, which contains tasks that are actual TFS work items, and got the following error message:

The dependency or hierarchy link types in this Project file is no longer available on the server.  You can either restor elink types on the server or continue and no longer synchronize linking information with the server.

Do you want to ocntinue and lose linking changes?



I am using MS Project 2007, and TFS 2008.  Everything was working fine until today when I tried to publish.  Made no changes on server.  And could not find any reference to this issue (let alone how to address it).

The side effect really does seem that work items in this project are now no longer related to the work items in TFS (which is not good).  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you.

Answer 1

Found the issue! Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 was installed on my machine, and this causes a problem.  Apparently we have a situation:

If you use MS Project to interact with TFS 2008, for the purpose of gathering/publishing work items, and then install Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2, you will loose the ability to keep your MS Project file and your TFS 2008 server synchoronized.

It looks like Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2's plug-in for Office changes some of the link type definitions (guessing here), such that an incompatability arrises if you try to now use your MS Project to connect to a TFS 2008 server.

Re-installing Visual Studio 2008 Team Explorer did NOT fix the issue.
Uninstalling Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 *DID* fix the issue.

So sadly, I can not have VS 2010 Ultimate Beta 2 and VS 2008 Team Explorer and connect to a TFS 2008 server, at the same time :(

(This makes upgrade path migration and testing more difficult).

Answer 2

Hello AnilCa,

Thanks for reporting this issue.

Team Explorer 2010 Beta2 is supposed to backward support TFS 2008 server. You may find a compatibility issue. Could you provide the steps that you can reproduce the issue? Thanks.

You can also file a bug in http://connect.microsoft.com/ site.

Have a nice day.

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Answer 3

There is a known compatibility issue when porting a Microsoft Project document between the TE 2008 client and one that has the TE 2010 client related to the new hierarchy.  An update for the TE 2008 client is available that will keep this issue from happening in the future; it will also provide a good user experience when using the TE 2008.  It can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=cf13ea45-d17b-4edc-8e6c-6c5b208ec54d

You can learn more about compatibility at our blog site here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/teams_wit_tools/archive/2009/10/19/compatibility-matrix-for-2010-beta-2-team-foundation-server-to-team-explorer-2008-and-2005.aspx

Hopefully this will keep this issue from repeating.

John Nierenberg

TFS Office Integration

Answer 4

Hi,

I'm getting the same problem. Have VS 2008 SP1 installed alongside VS2010 Beta 2, connecting to a TFS 2008 SP1 server. My existing project plan, which was created and is linked to TFS work items in my TFS project before I installed VS 2010 Beta 2, will now not publish, with the same error message as above.

John, I've tried installing the forward compatibility client linked to in this thread, but it makes no difference.

I'm unwilling to remove VS 2010 beta 2 at present, so solution will be to create a VM with project and VS 2008 TFS client on it that I'll just use for updating my project plan.

Hope this info helps someone.

Answer 5

Greg,

If you have VS 2010 Beta 2 side by side then it becomes the default TFS Add-In.  Since the project plan was last updated by a pre- Forward Compat VS 2008 SP1 client add-in to MS Project, the 2010 add-in is not able to fix the problem. 

If you install 2008 SP with the Forward Compat Update on a seperate box or VM, them you can have it publish and refresh the plan.  At that point it should then be compatible and portable to be used on the VS 2010 Beta 2 Add-In.

I am very sorry for the inconvenience this caused you.

John

Answer 6

Hi John,

Many thanks for your swift reply. What I'll probably do is uninstall 2010 beta 2, make sure I've got 2008 SP1 with the forward compatibility pack installed, re-publish, then re-install beta 2. That'll probably be quicker than setting up a VM as I don't have an image handy unfortunately.

I'll report back with the results :)

No need to apologize, I've got enough grey hairs to understand installing a beta development environment comes with these kind of risks, even though MS are pushing the go-live license for it :)

Cheers,
Greg

Answer 7

Just to follow up on this - my cunning plain failed. Uninstalled beta2, re-installed the forward compatibility update, re-published the project plan (this worked fine), then re-installed beta 2. After beta 2 went back on, I get the same error publishing the plan.

I'll set up a VM with Project, VS2008 SP1 and the forward compatibility update only (having never had beta 2 on there), and try that!

Cheers,
Greg