I find myself needing to remote debug some deployed code, I have a clear changeset defined in tfs that is the code that was deployed.
My question is: What is the standard procedure in TFS to ensure my local code matches what has been deployed to live.
"Get This Version": I seem to recall that operation only checks out the changeset in question, leaving all other files in place, some of which have have been changed by another later changeset
"Rollback Entire Changeset": This one appears most promising, but I'm confused if it means 'Roll back TO this changeset', or if it means 'Roll back this changeset' effectively leaving the code in a state BEFORE that changeset was checked it.
Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.
According to your description, you shouldn't use rollback entire changeset feature. This will influence your source control in TFS. If you roll back a file to an earlier version, tfs will eliminating the effect of all changesets that occurred after that version. More details please take a look at this tutorial: Roll back changesets
Actually you just want to get an older version in history include all files for a branch or root project folder.
In TFS, you could Get Specific Version instead of get latest version of the branch. Details please refer this question: TFS Get Specific Version into separate folder
How to do this in VS: right click the branch-Advance-Get Specific Version. Have a look at my answer in this similar question: TFS source code explorer: browse specific revision
I have several projects in TFS which visually appear in the directory hierarchy as grayed out. When I browse within the projects in Visual Studio 2010/Source Control/TFS 2010, I notice that all of their contents have a Latest value of "Not downloaded". Normally, I have only seen Latest values of "Yes" or "No".
I have tried all of the varieties of "Get latest" that I know, but I am always alerted that "All files are up to date".
If I try to "Check out for edit", I am not allowed.
When I observe the properties of these grayed out files, they always say Workspace Version = "Not applicable".
How do I fix TFS so that I can download and check out the projects again? My suspicion is that my workspace is messed up, but I do not know what to do to restore/reconfigure it.
I was able to remap the directory to fix my issue. To do this, I
selected (right-clicked) the branch that included all of my code, and selected "Remove Mapping..."
renamed the folder I was mapped to within TFS (you can delete it as well, but I renamed just to keep it during this experimental process)
created a new folder with the original name of the branch I was mapped to in the beginning, and
selected (right-clicked) the branch that included all of my code, and selected "Map to Local Folder".
This process forces a complete re-download of the entire branch. Luckily for me, my branch was only 2GB, so I was able to re-download in about 5-10 minutes.
The reason for getting "All files are up to date" - is that the information on the TFS server and the files on your disk is out of sync. If you delete the files on your disk with file explorer - the TFS server still thinks you have the file on disk. To re-sync you have to force an update like this:
Check the two checkbox on this dialog - and click Get:
It happened to me as well when I added and existing project as a reference to another project.
When I added the project reference I had a pop-up message that told me that the current project already exists at the source control but at a different location then the relative path of the current project.
by a mistake I choose the wrong option which lead to the unnecessary mapping.
In order to solve this issue I've removed the mapping from the workspace.
only after removing the mapping i could get the latest project.
I solved it by following this - remove the work space and then tfs prompted me to download everything again.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181386(v=vs.100).aspx
It sounds like the folders / files in TFS are not mapped to a local drive in your workspace.
In Source Control Explorer, select the "Workspace:" dropdown, then select "Workspaces".
Choose your current workspace form the list that appears, then hit "Edit". Check that the TFS folder $/blah is mapped to a local folder c:\tfs\blah
You should now be able to get latest, check out etc.
I had some weirdness with this after :
updating to TFS2017
updating to VS2017
trying to change my TFS URL to https (gave up and reverted back to http)
So somewhere along the line this broke my workspace such that all my projects were showing as unbound. I was able to do a get latest again. This should not overwrite any files you have changed providing they are writable, but if you have any doubt whatsoever then backup your local workspace before doing get latest. It will ask you to resolve conflicts - so make sure to select 'keep local copy'.
In my case, when the branch was deleted: Right click + Check in, helped.
Why Why WHY doesn't TFS's get latest work consistently?
You would have thought that feature would have been tested thoroughly.
What I have to do is, get specific version, then check both overwrite writetable files + overwrite all files.
Is my local setup messed up or you do this also?
TFS redefined what "Get Latest" does. In TFS terms, Get Latest means get the latest version of the files, but ignore the ones that the server thinks is already in your workspace. Which to me and just about everyone else on the planet is wrong.
See this link: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/srlteam/archive/2009/04/13/how-get-latest-version-really-works.aspx
The only way to get it to do what you want is to Get Specific Version, then check both of the "Overwrite ..." boxes.
Sometimes Get specific version even checking both checkboxes won't get you the latest file. You've probably made a change to a file, and want to undo those changes by re-getting the latest version. Well... that's what Undo pending changes is for and not the purpose of Get specific version.
If in doubt:
undo pending check in on the file(s)
do a compare afterwards to make sure your file matches the expected version
run a recursive 'compare' on your whole project afterwards to see what else is different
keep an eye on pending changes window and sometimes you may need to check 'take server version' to resolve an incompatible pending change
And this one's my favorite that I just discovered :
keep an eye out in the the Output window for messages such as this :
Warning - Unable to refresh R:\TFS-PROJECTS\www.example.com\ExampleMVC\Example MVC\Example MVC.csproj because you have a pending edit.
This critical message appears in the output window. No other notifications!
Nothing in pending changes and no other dialog message telling you that the file you just requested explicitly was not retrieved! And yes - you resolve this by just running Undo pending changes and getting the file.
TFS, like some other source control providers, such as Perforce, do this, as the system knows what the last version you successfully got was, so get latest turns into "get changes since x". If you play by its rules and actually check things out before editing them, you don't confuse matters, and "get latest" really does as it says.
As you've seen, you can force it to reassess everything, which has a much greater bandwidth usage, but behaves closer to how SourceSafe used to.
It's hard to respond to a statement without examples of how it's not working, but it's crucial to understand that TFVC (in "Server Workspace" mode, which was the mechanism prior to TFS 2012) does not examine the state of your local filesystem. TFVC Server Workspaces are a "checkout-edit-checkin" type of system where this is by-design, an intentional decision made to massively reduce the amount of file I/O required to determine the state of your workspace. Instead, the workspace information is saved on the server.
This allows TFVC Server Workspaces to scale to very large codebases very efficiently. If you are in a multi-gigabyte code base (like Visual Studio or the Windows source tree) then your client does not need to scan your local filesystem, looking for files that may have changed, because the contract you have with TFS is that you will explicitly check a file out when you want to edit it.
You are expected to not mark a file as write-only and change it without explicitly checking it out first. If you go down this route, then the server does not know that you have made changes to your file, and performing a "Get Latest" operation will not update your local workspace, because you haven't told the server that you've made changes.
If you do subvert this mechanism then you can use the tfpt reconcile command to examine your local workspace for changes that you have made locally.
If you find yourself using "Get Specific Version" and selecting the "force" and "overwrite" options, then it is very likely that you are in the habit of bypassing all of the enforcements that TFS has implemented to keep you from hurting yourself, and you should probably consider TFVC Local Workspaces.
TFVC Local Workspaces provide an "edit-merge-commit" type of version control system, which means that you do not need to explicitly check files out before editing them and they are not read-only on-disk. Instead, you simply need to edit the file, and your client will scan the filesystem, notice the change, and present this as a pending change.
TFVC Local Workspaces are recommended for small projects that do not require fine-grained permissions control, since they present a much nicer workflow. You are not required to be online, and you do not have to explicitly check files out before editing them.
TFVC Local Workspaces are the default in TFS 2012, and if they are not enabled for you, then you should ask your server administrator. (Organizations with very large codebases or strict auditing requirements may disable TFVC Local Workspaces.)
Eric Sink's excellent book Version Control By Example outlines the differences between checkout-edit-checkin and edit-merge-commit systems and when one is more appropriate than the other.
The Professional Team Foundation Server 2013 book also provides excellent information about the differences between TFVC Server Workspaces and TFVC Local Workspaces. The MSDN documentation and blogs also provide detailed information:
Decide between using a local or a server workspace
Server workspaces vs. local workspaces
Team Foundation Server – Trying to understand Server versus Local Workspaces
Team Foundation Server (TFS) keeps track of its local copy in a hidden directory called $TF.When you issue the "get Latest Version", TFS looks into this folder and see weather I have the latest copy or not. If it does it will not download the latest copy. It does not matter if you have the original file or not. In fact you might have deleted the entire folder (as in my case) and TFS won't fetch the latest copy because it does not look into the actual file but the hidden directory where it records changes. The flaw with this design is, anything done outside the system will not be recorded in TFS. For example, you may go into Windows explorer, delete a folder or file and TFS wont recognize it. It will be totally blind. At least I would expect there Windows would not let you delete this file but it does!
One way to enforce the latest copy is to delete the hidden $TF folder manually. To do that, go to command prompt and navigate to the root folder where you project was checked out and issue this command
rd/s $tf // remove $TF folder and everything inside it
If you want to just check the hidden folder, you can do it using
dir /ah // display hidden files and folders
Note: If you do it, the tf will think you do not have any local copy even though you have it in files and it will sync up everything again.
Caution: Use this method at your own risk. Please do not use it on critical work.
"Get latest version" by default will only download the files that have changed on the server since the last time you ran "Get latest version". TFS keeps track of the files you download so it doesn't spend time downloading the same version of the files again. If you are modifying the files outside of Visual Studio, this can cause the consistency problems it sounds like you are seeing.
Unfortunately, there has to be one or more bugs in TFS 2008, since this problem regularly crop up on developer machines and build servers where I work as well.
I can do Get Latest, I can see in the history list of the project that there have been commits after I last did a Get Latest, I have not touched the files on disk in any way, but after the "Get Latest" function has completed, when I check the TFS tab, some of the files still says that they're not the latest version.
Obviously TFS is able to determine that I have old files locally, since the list says so. Yet, Get Latest fails to do that, get the latest version. If I do what you did, use the Get Specific version, and check the two checkboxes at the bottom of the dialog, then the files are retrieved.
We changed our build servers to always use the Get Specific version type of function instead, so this part now works, but since our build server (TeamCity) also relies on checking if there have been changes to the files in order to kick off a build, sometimes it lapses into a "nothing changed, nothing to see here, move along" mode and does nothing until we forcibly run the build configuration.
Note that I have experienced this problem on a machine that is never touched, except for get latest + build, both manually, so there's nothing tampering with the files. It's just TFS getting confused.
One time this cropped up I verified that the files on disk was indeed binary identical to the version previously retrieved, so no manual tampering had been done with the files.
Also, I fail to see how TFS can "know" whether files have changed on disk or not without actually looking at the contents. If one part of TFS can see that the files are indeed not the latest version, then the Get Latest version should absolutely be able to get the latest version. This in reference to comments to other answers here.
It might because you are login TFS as the same user, and the workspace name (based on machine name by default) is also the same, so TFS thinks your are on the same machine and same workspace, thus you already have the latest version of the files, so it wont get them for you.
try rename your machine, and create a new workspace as a new machine.
Go with right click: Advanced > Get Specific Version. Select "Letest Version" and now, important, mark two checks:
The checks are:
Overwrite writeable files that are not checked
Overwrite all files even if the local version matches the specified version
WHen I run into this problem with it not getting latest and version mismatches I first do a "Get Specific Version" set it to changeset and put in 1. This will then remove all the files from your local workspace (for that project, folder, file, etc) and it will also have TFS update so that it knows you now have NO VERSION DOWNLOADED. You can then do a "Get Latest" and viola, you will actually have the latest
I had the same issue with Visual Studio 2012. No matter what I did, it didn't get the code from TFS source control.
In my case, the cause was mappings a folder + subfolder from the source control separately but to the same tree in my local HD.
The solution was removing the subfolder mapping using the "manage workspaces" window.
Most of the issues I've seen with developers complaining that Get Latest doesn't do what they expect stem from the fact that they're performing a Get Latest from Solution Explorer rather than from Source Control Explorer. Solution Explorer only gets the files that are part of the solution and ignores anything that may be required by files within the solution, and therefore part of source control, whereas Source Control explorer compares your local workspace against the repository on the server to determine which files are needed.
It could happen when you use TFS from two different machines with the same account, if so you should compare to see changed files and check out them then get latest then undo pending changes to remove checkout
This worked for me:
1. Exit Visual Studio
2. Open a command window and navigate to the folder: "%localappdata%\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\"
3. Navigate to the sub folders for every version and delete the sub folder "cache" and its contents
4. Restart Visual Studio and connect to TFS.
5. Test the Get Latest Version.
In my case, Get specific version, even checking both check boxes and undoing all pending changes didn't work.
Checked the work spaces. Edit current workspace. Check all paths.
The solution path was incorrect and was pointing to a deleted folder.
Fixed the path and get latest worked fine.
Every time this happens to me (so far) is because I have local edits pending on the .csproj project file. That file seems to keep a list of all the files included in the project. Any new files added by somebody else are "not downloaded" because they are not in my locally edited (now stale) project file. To get all the files I first have to undo pending changes to the .csproj file first then "get all". I do not have to undo other changes I have made, but I may have to go back and include my new files again (and then the next guy gets the same problem when he tries to "get all"...)
It seems to me there is some fundamental kludginess when multiple people are adding new files at the same time.
(this is in .Net Framework projects, maybe the other frameworks like Core behave differently)
just want to add TFS MSBuild does not support special characters on folders i.e. "#"
i had experienced in the past where one of our project folders named as External#Project1
we created a TFS Build definition to run a custom msbuild file then the workspace folder is not getting any contents at the External#Project1 folder during workspace get latest. It seems that tfs get is failing but does not show any error.
after some trial and error and renaming the folder to _Project1. voila we got files on the the folder (_Project1).
Tool:
TFS Power Tools
Source:
http://dennymichael.net/2013/03/19/tfs-scorch/
Command:
tfpt scorch /recursive /deletes C:\LocationOfWorkspaceOrFolder
This will bring up a dialog box that will ask you to Delete or Download a list of files. Select or Unselect the files accordingly and press ok. Appearance in Grid (CheckBox, FileName, FileAction, FilePath)
Cause:
TFS will only compare against items in the workspace. If alterations were made outside of the workspace TFS will be unaware of them.
Hopefully someone finds this useful. I found this post after deleting a handful of folders in varying locations. Not remembering which folders I deleted excluded the usual Force Get/Replace option I would have used.
I encountered the same problem:
My development server was corrupted and restored, but the information restored was from a few days ago.
TFS was updated that all the files are up to date, but in practice my files were correct a few days ago!
Nothing I did helped. get latest did not get the latest version.
At the end I got specific varision from a month ago. my files were updated accordingly, and then I did get latest.
And it worked. the files have been updated.
I need to get a previous version of a file in source control, using Team Foundation Server (TFS), . When I try to get a specific version based on change set the merge screen comes up. I do not want this, I just want to get the previous version and have it checked out. My current version of the file got corrupted and now I just want the previous version.
Ah, it sounds like you want to rollback (that is, remove some checkins from TFS' history). There is not a built-in way to do this with TFS. However, you can use the TFS Power Tools to accomplish this (there is a tfpt rollback command).
In practice, the rollback command just does what you're trying to do. To do it manually, get the version that you want (without checking out the file). Save that somewhere else, then check the file out (which will perform a "get latest" command). Then overwrite that version with the version that you saved elsewhere.
Alternatively, there's a setting in the TFS settings to "Get latest version of item on check out," which may be the cause of all of your problems. It's located in Tools->Options, under Source Control->Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. If that's checked for you, try unchecking it and seeing if it'll let you do what you're trying.
On the merge screen, you should be able to choose to overwrite your local copy with the server version. That sounds like what you want to do.
However, the merge screen should only show up if you have pending changes. If you undo your pending changes on the file, the Get Specific Version command shouldn't cause a merge.
Hmm maybe I am doing something else wrong. I check the file out, then I do get specific version, enter the changeset number, I do not check either of the overwrite check boxes. I get the merge screen, I tell it to overwrite local copy. It does this, but then it undoes my check out and says I do not have the latest on my local computer. If I checkout at this point it ovewrites my previous version with the latest.