TFS Has Skipped Some Work Item ID Numbers

Question

I've got a TFS 2010 install which seems to be sporadically skipping an ID number for work items.  It will only be one number maybe two which will be left out ie. TASK 3306 exists and 3308 exists but 3307 is missing.  I'm sure they wouldn't have been deleted and as far as I can tell I should be able to find them in the database even if they were.

I don't think it is very important however I would like to have an idea why something like this would happen. 

Has anyone had this happen?

Can anyone think of a way to reproduce this?

Is there somewhere in the database of the admin tool where I can find out what happened to my missing numbers?

Have a wonderful day.  Thanks

Answer 1

Hi ShaunMcGregor,

Thank you for your post.

Please open collection database, dbo.WorkItemsDestroyed table to check ID 3307 is there or not.

Regards,

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

Answer 2

Hi Lily,

Unfortunately that table is empty.

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-Shaun

Answer 3

Hi ShaunMcGregor,,

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 4

Thanks Lily, I appreciate the help.

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-Shaun

Answer 5

Hi Shaun,

This condition of skipped work item numbers is very rare.   There is that situation where the workitemsare table does not match workitemswere table in the collection. This situation could occur when saving multiple new items at the same time. This is a rare occurrence.   This is the only scenario we can think of that might cause this.

Have you seen it since installing SP1?

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Trevor Hancock (Microsoft)
Please remember to "Mark As Answer" the replies that help.

Answer 6

Hi Trevor,

I'll pass the information on, it was helpful thanks.  We have seen this in SP1.

As I said in my original post I'm not too concerned, but it's good to know what might be causing it. 

Thanks

P.S. I've marked it as an answer but if you have any other questions or comments I will continue to monitor the thread.

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-Shaun

Answer 7

We have similar behavior using TFS Server 2010 Service Pack 1.

Until now we create 3000 Work Items (WI) in four Team Projects.

Since two month we notice suspicious behavior in numbering work item ID.

When using new or copy function to create work items in WEB or Team Explorer Interface,  new generated ID increases more than 1.

Sometimes WI IDs skips a wide range of numbers and sometime only some WI are missing.

Examples of  TFS WI ID skip:

Skip 2340 -> 3335 all WI IDs between are missing by creating WI 3335

Skip 3628 -> 4659 all WI IDs between are missing by copy of WI 3628

As we notice this behavior we search for more spaces in WI numbering and found missing WI:

Example  missing WI IDs:

2060, 2061, 2062

Next WI 2063 was created without copy function but contains child task at creation time

2064

Next WI 2065 was created without copy function but contains parent task at creation time

2313

Next WI 2314 was created without copy function but contains child task at creation time

Missing single work item is not a problem, but skipping more than 1000 work item numbers seems to be a problem.

Answer 8

Tevor,

This does not seem "rare" for us.  Any suggestions?  Skipping ID Numbers frequently.  Using TFS2010.

Thanks,

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Christopher Lee

Answer 9

We really need some sort fo resolution here.  We are creating less than two dozen TFS items a day, but yesterday the ID's have mysteriously skipped from 112511 to 118637.  Over that last five days the ID's have moved more than 60,000.  I'm afraid things could start to get out of control.

The missing ID's are NOT in WorkItemsDestroyed and the skipped ID's do not exsist - verified.

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Christopher Lee

Answer 10

Issue resolved. We were having sync errors between Project Server and TFS.  See (TFS Sync Service – TFSJobAgent): http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsprojectsrvint/thread/17213b0e-2190-463c-852d-423dbaec5c72/.  Once this seemingly unrelated issue was resolved, it appears that the TFS Work Item ID number skipping issue was also fixed.

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Christopher Lee