I need to create a scheduled task to remove a file lock or undo pending changes for a specific file (let's call this file $\MyProject\MyFile.cs).
I know I can do this via the TFS command line utility using tf undo, which requires you to specify the user and the workspace.
However in this case the scheduled task does not know which user or workspace is locking the file, so I can't specify this in the command.
Is there a way of removing a lock on a file for all users and workspaces?
I had the idea of using tf status command to retrieve the user and workspace the file is locked to, then passing this into my tf undo command, but tf status seems to only show me the user and not the workspace name.
Apolgies in advance if there is already an answer to this question. I've been looking for hours and couldn't find a solution.
Check case: tf.exe undo pending changes from other users, the answer in this case gave the solution to get all workspace:
tf status supports a /format parameter. The brief output (which is the default) doesn't include the workspace. the detailed one does.
tf status "$/MyProject" /s:MyServer /u:* /recursive /format:detailed
I had a project in tfs within a team project then we moved the project to a different location in another team project.
I had configured Jenkins to connect to the team project and build my solution but when I changed the settings to connect to the new tfs team project, it gives me the below error:
[workspace] $ "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\tf.exe" workspace -new Hudson-ProjectName1-Build-MASTER;domain1\username1 -noprompt -server:http://domain-eg.net:8080/tfs/newteamproject ********
The path D:\jenkins\jobs\ProjectName1-Build\workspace is already mapped in workspace Hudson-ProjectName1-Build-MASTER [http://domain-eg.net:8080/tfs/oldteamproject].
So the above shows that there is an existing workspace so I ran the below command to remove it
tf workspace -delete Hudson-ProjectName1-Build-MASTER;domain1\username1 -noprompt -server:http://domain-eg.net:8080/tfs/oldteamproject
and it prompted that the workspace has been removed but I'm still getting the same error.
I also checked whether the mapping has been removed or not by running the below command:
tf workspace -server:http://domain-eg.net:8080/tfs/oldteamproject Hudson-ProjectName1-Build-MASTER
but it says the workspace doesn't exist as expected.
So, I thought it might be caching it somewhere and ran the below command:
tf workspaces /remove:* /collection:http://domain-eg.net:8080/tfs/oldteamproject
and it said "No workspace in the cache matches * from server http://domain-eg.net:8080/tfs/oldteamproject"
so I'd guess it's not even cached.
So what's causing the error and how to resolve it?
From VS:
Open Team Explorer
Click Source Control Explorer
In the nav bar of the tool window there is a drop down labeled "Workspaces".
Extend it and click on the "Workspaces..." option (yeah, a bit un-intuitive)
The "Manage Workspaces" window comes up. Click edit and you can add / remove / edit your workspace
From VS on a different machine
You don't need VS to be on the same machine as the enlistment as you can edit remote enlistments! In the dialog that comes up when you press the "Workspaces..." item there is a check box stating "Show Remote Workspaces" - just tick that and you'll get a list of all your enlistments:
From the command line
Call "tf workspace" from a developer command prompt. It will bring up the "Manage Workspaces" directly!
I ran into the same problem, and was able to fix it by manually deleting all the files in the TFS cache, located here:
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Team Foundation\3.0\Cache
or 4.0, 5.0, etc.
Follow these steps to remove mapping from TFS:
Open team explorer
Click Source Control
Right click on you project
Click on Remove Mapping
The error is genuine. You might have created workspace with same name on different machine. Now you may have changed machine having different machine name.
So here is work-around that will definitely work.Following is work-around.
Go to "Team-Explorer"
Go to "Source-Control"
Go to Workspace drop-down
Click on "Workspaces..."
A pop-up window will appear
Click on "Show remote workspaces"
Now delete the workspace which is conflicting and you can proceed your work.
Please follow the below steps:
Ctrl + Run
Copy and Past
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Team Foundation
You will get different version of TFS e.g
Click on each folder and you will get
Now Delete all data in these folder.
Reopen the Visual studio.
Thanks.
All of the answers here seem to be partial answers that don't work in all cases. I think this answer will work in all cases, assuming you have proper permissions.
Open up the Developer Command Prompt. In my case, I've tested this with the Developer Command Prompt for VS 2019.
Type this command: tf workspaces
Note that the results can list a couple tables with identical structure. If you only see one table, then some of the assumptions in the other answers can work for you. However, if you see two or more tables, then that Collection string is important! For our examples, we're going to assume you have two Collections (two is no different than four other than one is more tedious than the other to go through it):
https://dev.azure.com/foo and https://bar.visualstudio.com/
With luck, you will know which one of these two you want to work with. However, if you need to cycle through them all, then you'll just have to do that one collection at a time. Each "Collection" here is the same as an "Organization" in Azure DevOps (I think).
If you don't use this Collection detail, then you might see an error message:
Unable to determine the source control server.
Next, type this command for the collection you want to use:
tf workspaces /computer:* /owner:* /collection:https://dev.azure.com/foo
This will give you a much more complete picture of what you're dealing with. This gets especially nasty if you have had multiple MSAs and Org accounts hitting this repo from the same computer. In fact, you might have multiple seemingly-identical entries. If you try to delete them based on what you currently know, it may not work. But we can get more information.
Next, we're going to run the same command but append /format:xml to the end of it:
tf workspaces /computer:* /owner:* /collection:https://dev.azure.com/foo /format:xml
This now gives you a bunch of XML with some additional properties. The ones that we likely care about the most are the Owner Aliases. This is the missing information you need to now go through and delete these workspaces. Without this additional information, it's easy to hit a wall and be stuck with an error message:
Specify one workspace.
Now we have all of the info we need. Given the additional OwernAliases entries, select the unique entry (or repeat if more than one) that you wish to delete and use this following command (a couple examples are listed):
tf workspace /delete /collection:https://dev.azure.com/foo
"MyWorkspaceName;Windows Live ID\John.Doe#hotmail.com"
tf workspace /delete /collection:https://dev.azure.com/foo
"MyWorkspaceName;John Doe"
tf workspace
/delete /collection https://dev.azure.com/foo
"MyWorkspaceName;2C3E8474-A39C-4785-8794-DC72F09981E6\John.Doe#Example.com"
The GUID identifies an AAD directory and the quotes are there to handle any spaces that might be in an alias. The "MyWorkspaceName" comes from your previous queries listing out the workspaces.
Without this very thorough approach, it's possible that all of the other answers in this question will fail for you. While some of those efforts will clear out local workspaces, they will not clear out server workspaces, which you can still conflict with. Additionally, if you have previously used a different account things can get hairy, like if you switched from an MSA to an AAD account. And things get REALLY hairy if you have an MSA account and multiple AAD accounts all with the same email address that you have used from the same workstation. And then it gets super crazy hairy if multiple of those all used the default name for the workspace: your computer's hostname. In my case, I had four workspaces all with the same Workspace name, Owner name, and Computer name (i.e. the first query without the XML formatting had 4 identical records!).
I do not know if there's a more graphcial way to manage these than this. I have looked and not yet found a better way than this.
Update 2019-01-23
If you’re repeatedly getting the following error The workspace wkspaceEg does not exist… even after employing the correct username (wkspcOwnerDomain\wkspcOwnerUsername) in the tf workspace command, e.g.,
tf workspace "wkspaceEg;wkspcOwnerDomain\wkspcOwnerUsername" /collection:http://tfs.example.com:8080/tfs/collectionEg /login:TFSUsername,TFSPassword
then the tf workfold command may help fix it. See this question.
If even that doesn’t work and you’re unable/unwilling to use TFS Sidekicks, proceed to the risky last-ditch option below.
I’m using TFS 2012. I tried everything that was suggested online: deleted cache folder, used the workspaces dropdown, tf workspaces /remove:*, cleared credentials from Control Panel, IE, etc.
Nothing worked, I believe my workspace got corrupted somehow. Finally, I went to the TFS database and ran the following queries. That worked! Of course be very careful when messing with the database, take backups, etc.
The database is called Tfs_<<your_TFS_collection_name>>. Ignore the Tfs_Configuration MSSQL database. I'm not sure but if you don't have a Tfs_<<your_TFS_collection_name>> database, settings might be in the Tfs_DefaultCollection database. Mapping is stored in tbl_WorkingFolder.LocalItem.
/*Find correct workspace*/
SELECT WorkspaceId, *
FROM tbl_Workspace
ORDER BY WorkspaceName
/*View the existing mapping*/
SELECT LocalItem, *
FROM tbl_WorkingFolder
WHERE WorkspaceId = <<WorkspaceId from above>>
/*Update mapping*/
UPDATE tbl_WorkingFolder
SET LocalItem = 'D:\Legacy.00\TFS\Source\Workspaces\teamProjEg' WHERE
/*LocalItem = NULL might work too but I haven't tried it*/
WorkspaceId = <<WorkspaceId from above>>
Team Explorer > Source Control Explorer >
I managed to remove the mapping using the /newowner command as suggested here:
How can I regain access to my Team Foundation Server Workspace?
The command opened an Edit Workspace windows where I removed the mapping. Afterwards I deleted the workspace I didn't need.
None of the answers here removed my workspaces. But here is one solution that may work for you.
Open up a Visual Studio command prompt
Close Visual Studio first or the delete command may not delete the workspace
List the workspace commands -> tf /? to find the commands available to you from the version of TFS.
List the workspaces -> tf workspaces
Delete the workspace -> tf workspace YourWorkspace /delete
You don't have to delete the entire Cache folder. you lose all settings / preferences
The workspace mappings are stored in a file called:
VersionControl.config under the users local settings/application data directory.
located here in windows 7:
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Team Foundation\x.0\Cache\Volatile
where x= 3.0,4.0, 5.0,6.0 etc.
Inside this you will find guid named folders , open each of them, manually editing the forementioned file, to remove the workspace mapping(directory path will be present in mappedpaths attribute) from that local folder to the TFS server (which is no longer in usage).
File -> Source Control -> Advanced -> Workspaces -> Choose the workspace in Manage Workspaces and click "Edit" Then you can change the local folder.
Finally deleted ALL workspaces and started from scratch. Fixed.
I was prompted to login to our TFS server via Visual Studio, so I used my SU account which is typically required for server access. This led to some issues, and I ended up mapping to a different folder, not realizing I had just duplicated all my stuff. At some point, Visual Studio reverted back to my regular user, I "lost" pending changes, and noticed that new pending changes were placed by in my old mapping.
When I would try to remap to the new location (that the SU account was linked to) in an attempt to recover my pending changes, it would tell me it was already mapped to the SU, and I couldn't do that, but had no way of removing the map! Show remote workspaces, removing all workspaces via command line, etc revealed nothing. I then thought "what if it's actually linked to the SU user account on my computer, not the domain." I logged in as my SU locally, and sure enough, there was a workspace all setup for that user. I removed the mapping, and was able to go back to my regular user and remap without issue.
Moral of the story, perhaps another user is logged in on the same machine, which isn't visible from the currently logged in user, thus you cannot remove or even see the mappings.
If the mentioned clues are not helping you then download Team Foundation Sidekick and using that you can delete the workspaces.
Following are the steps to remove mapping of a project from TFS:
(1) Click on View Button.
(2) Open Team Explorer
(3) Click on Source Control
(4) Right click on your project/Directory
(5) Click on Remove Mapping
(6) Finally Delete the Project form local directory.
You can also remove a tfs mapping by simply editing your .sln file and removing the GlobalSection element for the tfs binding.
Thanks for your help!
Find problem workspace
SELECT * FROM tbl_Workspace
WHERE WorkspaceName like '%xxxxx%'
Find desired workspace
SELECT * FROM tbl_Workspace
WHERE WorkspaceName like '%zzzzz%'
Select Edit Top 200 tbl_WorkingFolder then Find the problem mapping
SELECT * FROM tbl_WorkingFolder WHERE WorkspaceId = Problem WorkspaceId from above
Change the WorkspaceId to the desired WorkspaceId
Finally goto Project Explorer and select Remove Mapping on the project
Modify VB6 MSSCCPRJ.SCC to match the desired WorkSpace
First download and install Team Explorer plugin in your system and then go to the Source Control Explorer. In the navigation pane find the Workspace field and click on Workspaces option.
After clicking on Workspaces option, you will see all the workspaces that are mapped. Click on the remove button and the remove the mapping for required workspaces.
Run tf workspaces to view current workspace mappings. Output looks like:
Then run tf workspace /delete "{workspace};{user}
Using output above, to delete workspace bi:
tf workspace /delete bi;James Wierzba
If mapping is proper then you can undo/checkin your changes, if you really want to change folder name.
Alternatively if you want to remove mapping then in Visual Studio go to
File-> Source Control-> Advanced-> Workspaces-> Edit
Now you can click on appropriate path and remove mapping.
I am using TFS 2010 in my project,and have added some Existing Projects in my solution and i have shelved the changes(all the added files are checked out). When my team member unshelved the changes they got error like
Info.cs locked for Check out by username in workspacename
this continues for all my newly added files.
is this permission problem,because when i Right click the newly added folder, Unlock,Lock,Properties options are disabled.
I want to remove the lock and my team member also to be able to unshelve and checked in.
Can anyone please help to unlock the files.
You can use the command line http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/c72skhw4.aspx, or you can use the Sidekicks for this http://www.attrice.info/cm/tfs/
Is there a way to deactivate a project in TFS? (not delete, just deactivate so nobody can checkout or checkin)
This is more of a precaution rather than a hard enforcement. We have a project that was branched but was recently merged to a trunk. This project is no longer in use and I don't want anyone to accidentally use it by checking in/out any of its content. It will eventually be deleted when we have tested the merge completely
In Team Explorer, right click on the project and bring up Team Project Settings -> Group Membership. Go through each group, click Properties, and remove all users and groups from each group. This should prevent anyone who doesn't have a TFS administrator role from being able to check the code out. It may even prevent TFS administrators from being able to check it out without first adding themselves back to the correct project group.
I think this will work, but you should try it as I've never actually done it.
If you still want the project to be available, somebody could just put a lock on the project to prevent check-ins and check-outs. It will remained locked by the user who locks it until either the user unlocks it or their workspace is deleted. An admin can also unlock it using tf.exe.
You can lock a project, branch, folder, or file by right clicking on it and selecting the Lock option from the context menu (note: what you are locking has to exist physically on your drive). This page describes the various types of locks you can place on an item.
For work, I wrote a plug-in to automatically place a check-out lock on production branches once certain criteria are met. The lock is held by the account running the TFS services (in our case, Network Service). Nobody can check-out or check-in files in these branches until somebody uses tf.exe to unlock the branch.
I originally edited a file, which did a checkout. I received a new computer, and now I want to edit the file. I don't care about the original edit.
TFS reports that another user has an exclusive lock on the file. It's not actually another user, it's me, but the machine is different, so the workspace is different.
I tried unlocking with the tf commandline using the following command:
tf lock /lock:none /workspace:oldmachinename;domain\me /recursive $/projectname/directory /s:http:tfs:8080/tfs/project
I get no errors, but when I go into Visual studio 2010 (We're using tfs 2010 as well) The files remain locked.
What am I doing wrong?
Have you tried using TFS powertools?
Once you have that, you can right-click on your folder or file, and choose Find in Source Control -> Status. After you click Find, it should show you all the check-outs, or files that are checked-out
You should then be able to right-click on the checkout and choose "Undo..".
While this is generally issuing the same command line arguments, I've had good luck with it.
Deleting the old workspace is probably what you want to do. You can do this with the tf workspace command, but an easier method is to use the free TFS Sidekicks add-on which gives you a GUI to manage and delete workspaces.
If you aren't intending to use the old workspace again, it would be a good idea to (carefully) delete the entire workspace. This will clean up everything relating to it, and mean that it no longer "pollutes" listings of your active workspaces, etc.
You can also break the lock on a single file, but you will need to have appropriate permissions to be able to break locks. See here for a specific explanation of how to do it.
Try something like this:
The following example unlocks and makes all files in the src/ Team Foundation version control server folder available for check-out and check-in by other users.
c:\projects>tf lock /lock:none src/
More documentation here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/47b0c7w9.aspx