Microsoft Feedback Client issues with uploads - tfs

We're having some serious issues with the mfbclient.exe tool that is part of the feedback platform of VSTS. Basically, our stakeholder's uploads are not being sent.
This is extremely frustrating as you can imagine, as the ability to take screenshots etc is a major benefit of using the tool.
Members of the development team who have VS2017 installed on their machines as well as the feedback tool, can access the feedback request via the email that is automatically sent out when you click on "Request Feedback". Everything works perfectly.
If we send the request to a stakeholder, they can click on the link and it opens up the tool correctly, they can step through the items and make notes etc., and when they submit, their responses come through into VSTS. However, none of their attachments come through. They all say '(Uploading) filename.png' in VSTS.
Upon looking at one of the stakeholder's machines, I can see the mfbclient.exe tray icon says '0MB of 10MB transferred'. Restarting the machine doesn't change this - the attachments don't get uploaded.
Upon further investigation, under %localappdata%\microsoft\team foundation\x.0\testmanagement\ i can see an XML file which contains the list of all the screenshots / attachments etc that are to be loaded. The screenshot files themselves also exist (so, the files aren't missing/deleted). For some reason, the files just aren't uploading.
If I remove the XML file, it clears the attachment 'queue', but as soon as more feedback is entered and a screenshot added, the same issue occurs.
I noticed there was an mfbclient.exe.config file, which I edited on one of the stakeholder's machines and changed the trace level to '4' (verbose), which I thought would shed some light on the issue. However, I can't see anywhere that the logs might be. Does anyone know?
I have tested this with the stakeholder being part of the exact same security group as myself and the team (as I thought perhaps it was a permissions error), but this doesn't change the behaviour.
The only real differences I can think of between myself and team, and the people who are having the issues (and there are quite a few users who have the same issue so it's not just 1 person's problem), is that these people are stakeholders rather than subscribers (shouldn't make a difference), and they don't have Visual Studio installed on their machines (also, shouldn't make a difference).
Can anyone please shed any light on this issue? Has anyone else had the problem? Can someone from MSFT help?

Just as Sebastian mentioned, the solution is changing the Access Level from Stakeholder to Basic.
Basic provides access to most features, except for Test and other premium features. Stakeholder access to those users who need to
enter bugs, view backlogs, boards, charts, and dashboards, but who
don't have a TFS CAL. See About access levels for details.
Basic provides most features, Stakeholders can use the Feedback Client since TFS 2013 Update#5 based on this user voice. Can't attach pictures seems a permission limitation for Stakeholders.
Whatever seems it's by design or a feature missed or an issue on current version of TFS and VSTS based on the Stakeholders license limitation. However the requirement make sense and I have submitted a new user voice here to suggest the feature, you can go and vote it up to achieve that in future.
UPDATE:
I agree with your point of view, it's more inclined to be a bug. And you have submittetd a feedback here: Feeback Client - Upload fails for Stakeholder
Whether user voice or bug, development team will take care of them. So, let's wait for the response. And for now, you can change to the Basic Level to upload the pictures.

I have the same problem with our VSTS.
The problem really is because of the Stakeholder-License.
If I submit a feeback with a stakeholder account the upload stays at 0%. When I change the user then to Basic in VSTS, the upload starts automatically and completes.
EDIT: this issue has been fixed, as per this forum post: Feedback Client - Upload fails for Stakeholder

Related

How to manage comments on a large TFS shelvset used for code review?

I am reviewing a large shelveset from another developer in TFS web view, TFS server Version 15.117.26714.0. There are a large number of changes over a large number of files. I have been making comments on specific lines of code and using # mentions to notify the developer. They are getting the notifications but there is no link to the comment I made and no indication to which file or which line. Likewise if they reply I get a notification but again no indication as to which comment or file where the comment was made.
Is there a better way to manage this back-and-forth for code review? It's very convenient to make the comments in line but hard to track and manage. I know I can filter by comment type but the number of comments is still to large to identify a specific comment easily.
I realise this may not generally be an issue as shelvesets or changesets are typically not so big. This shevleset is big as a result of a first pass of a static analyzer on a large code base.
Thanks.
It seems like this is the default behavior that there is no link to the comment I made and no indication to which file or which line in the notification email.
I tested on TFS server and also on Azure devops cloud service. They have the same results that no links to the files or lines are included in the email.
You can submit a user voice to microsoft development team. Hope they will improve this feature and provide more detailed information in the notification email.
Alternatively, you can have a try reviewing the code in Visual studio. See tutorial here for reviewing code in Visual Studio.

How do I hide team members' contacts information from other teams within one Team Project?

I have an existing team working on one solution using Visual Studio Online. Now I have to add new developer to work on one of the projects. Due to security concerns I have to hide other team members' contact details and ideally names as well.
How can I accomplish this?
You're not going to be able to have everyone working in the same team project and keep this information hidden. There are ways to minimize the avenues through which someone can see the information -- for example, you could isolate the one developer into their own team, so names/emails wouldn't show up on the team's home page -- but if they're working on the same code in the same repository, they'll be able to see things like commit history, which will definitely have identifying details attached.

TFS 2013 Team Rooms not reporting events (anymore)

We have been using TFS 2013 for over a year now and have been using the Team Rooms (basically an IRC clone) without any problems. Additionally, I set up an automated build of our main project whenever anyone checks in a change. I then configured the Team Room to post a notification in the chat room whenever a build completed. Everyone appreciates this feature because it lets us know that there is a new update, and it lets us know if there is a problem compiling the current code base, usually prompting ridicule of the poor fool for being so careless.
Unfortunately, I recently took a two week vacation and while I was gone the Team Room stopped reporting build completions. Everyone claims there were no changes. I am the senior dev and the junior guys don't have access to the server anyway. I have verified in the "Manage events..." dialog that the room is still configured to post a notification when a build is completed, and I have been unable to find any trouble shooting guides on where else to look.
Is there a service I should be looking for? An error log somewhere? Has anyone else seen something like this?

In Atlassian Jira 4.1.2 how can I make a profile that may only view users of the system?

Experience with Jira is based on what I have seen from clicking through the project. There is no knowledge transfer as all people who knew this customized system left over a year ago.
As for the Atlassian PDF guide, it is not able to assist because the feature to add users and manage the users in Jira have been removed. An external LDAP system is where the users are managed.
I can view the User Browser and see users and do some editing of a profile and even delete the user from a navigation link in the footer.
But the real question at hand is, what do I need to do in order to
A. Assign users to an Organization Role that only allows them
1: A view only mode of the users in that Organization
2: View the details of the user and that users permissions/roles given
I've been looking for a few days now and just keep running into brick walls.
Thank you.
The upgrading of the system to the new version is not an option due to the extensive undocumented modifications made to Jira. It has been tried 3 times in the past 2 years without success.
I am answering based on JIRA 5.2 and higher experience.
Only place to see list of users is User Manager and you need to be JIRA admin to access it. So it's not a solution for you.
I searched for addon doing this but no luck. Moreover your JIRA is too old to be supported by addon providers.
The same story with JIRA REST API. Looks like for JIRA 4.1 you need to use JIRA REST 1.0 (current is 2.0) and I can not find docs for it.
I believe it's possible to write the addon to accomplish what you need but again it's not smart to invest in obsolete JIRA.
The most right solution is still migrate to the newest version of JIRA. Maybe you need abandon the undocumented changes or rewrite them into JIRA addons. It will not be easy and it can be costly but looks like you do not have too many options.
Task has been abandoned.
No answer to bad implementation and poor engineering practices when one is to continue to follow them.
I'd delete the post entirely but I'd rather give credit to the few that tried to provide some insight. Thanks again.

Discussions and email notifications on TFS tasks

We're new to TFS and have some tasks set up in Team Explorer. It seems the History pane is the right/best place to add notes/discussions (although it's very different from other tools I'm used to like bugzilla, jira, redmine)?
But how can we set it up so interested parties get notified of new comments on a task, preferably by email? We're all making it up as we go along with no prior TFS experience but I'd hope my experience with other tools (the project hasn't used a proper issue tracker before) would help me figure things out but it all seems rather confusing.
If you install the TFS 2010 Power Tools (this is removed for 2012 as it's setup in the web interface according to this link although I've not played with this in 2012), under Team > Alerts Explorer you can add alerts for email notifications.
It's pretty simple, you can get alerts for when work items are modified, created under a certain path, assigned to you etc, they are basically configured in a similar way to the work item queries so it's quite easy to setup what you want.
They can be setup by any users, so you might want to let your users setup their own custom rules as they like, then you logon as a generic user (such as your admin user) to setup team specific queries, or else you might end up with users complaining about getting emails no longer relevent to them or need changing, when the user that set them up leaves/moves etc... Else you'll be hunting round to find who setup the original rules.

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