MTM Action Recordings disappearing?

Question

Over the last few weeks I've had some Action Recordings disappearing. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason. Some exist from earlier recordings and some exist that were recorded after the missing recordings. Since I don't know (and can't find someone who knows) where the Action Recordings are stored, I haven't been able to track down what might have happened.

Anyone have any ideas? When you delete a Build and remove test results, would that also get rid of Action Recordings?

Answer 1

Hi hnoell2,

Thank you for your question.

I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best Regards,

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Lily Wu [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Hi Hnoell2,

Have you tried resetting the VS environment? 

Thanks!

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Sophia Lu [MSFT]

Answer 3

Thank you Sophia for the response and sorry for the late reply.

I have reset the VS environment and tried from a completely separate PC. The Action recordings just seem to not be there anymore. I know they existed once because I have the automated versions attached to the test case.

This seems so random and happens very infrequently. It's been over a month since the last loss (at least the discovery of the loss has been over a month) we have a little more than 500 tests for this project, and we've automated most of them.

Answer 4

Can you check if the test result has got deleted for your test case? If yes, then it might be that the build against which you tested, got deleted because of the build retention policy.

Answer 5

Would love to hear more about the affect on test results and action recordings when a build is deleted due to build retention policy? Please explain how this works.  Does it affect tests in both Visual Studio and Test Manager?

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Debra Forsyth

Answer 6

Few links to help you:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jpricket/archive/2011/04/14/tfs-2010-bulk-updating-build-definitions-retention-policies.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb399139(v=vs.110).aspx

Answer 7

I suspect this is due to someone manually updating test cases. If you add a step or update a test case they will no longer exist.

Answer 8

I had given up on this for more important issues, but have recently run into this again. So many Action Recordings disappear at once that I don't believe it's the result of updating a Test Case, escpecially since they are associated with applications that have not changed. The more I read and search, the more I believe the Action Recordings are stored with the Test Results. So when I delete an old build, so go the Action Recordings. I'll be testing that soon...

Answer 9

Are you sure that your builds are not getting deleted?

Does this help - http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aseemb/archive/2012/11/19/how-to-find-the-action-recording-associated-with-the-test.aspx

Answer 10

My builds were getting deleted (some were deleted on purpose, others by rule). I was able to show I only lost Action Recordings when deleting the builds (and all the options) when the Action Recording was created.

I had never had to delete builds so frequently - before I could get Action Recordings converted to Automated Tests. So the Missing Action Recordings had never been a problem before :-).

I think I can call this issue of mine answered, and thank everyone for their answers and suggestions.

That script was great! It definitely helped confirm my findings, thank you!