Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Blog - by Neno Loje : Issues and Hotfixes

TF30207: Can't create team project on TFS itself / red X on documents and reports / insufficient SSRS or WSS permissions

neno — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:16:37 GMT

Problem description

Team Project creation fails on the Team Foundation Server itself due to insufficient permissions although the user has all neccessary permissions in SQL Server Reporting Services (Content Manager role) as well as Windows SharePoint Services.

or

A red X is shown next to the Reports and Documents node when running Team Explorer on the Team Foundation Server itself.

Further obervations:

You can access http://<server>/reports without problems.
You can access the SharePoint Central Administration without problems.
Creating team projects with Team Explorer from other machines work fine.

Workaround

Follow the steps outlined in the following KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861

Unable to publish test results from Visual Studio to TFS

neno — Sat, 30 May 2009 20:54:41 GMT

Error message similar to:

username@servername (mailto:username@servername) 2008-10-13 2:21:50 0.28 MB 10/13/2008 3:19:14 PM Failed Access to the path '\\DropFolder\Buildname_20080723.3\TestResults\fd8883e0-2153-44c6-8671-6d6db460c4a8\uesrname 2008-10-13 _02_21.trx' is denied.

Cause: Permission issue

A Workaround can be found in the KB article 958726.

Hotfix for Team Build 2008 SP1: Reducing project-to-project references in build log (KB958845)

neno — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:10:30 GMT

From Aaron Hallberg blog:

[…] change in TFS Build SP1 which reduced build log noise by cutting out the build steps for project-to-project references […] the fix in SP1 didn't actually fix the problem, at least not completely.

[…] As such, if a project was referenced by 10 other projects the fix in SP1 would reduce the number of spurious build steps from 10*3 to 9*3 rather than removing them altogether.

A hotfix is finally available that will address the remaining parts of the problem […]

VSTS MVP colleague Mathias Olausson reports:

“before SP1 the build time was about 2h 30 min, with SP1 build time in average 65 minutes and with the build hotfix we’re now down to less than 40 minutes. The build log has changed from 5500 lines down to 550.”

Download hotfix: TFSBuild TargetsNotLogged property fails to cut down noisy builds

Additional Info: KB article 958845

Security Update for TSWA 2008 SP1

neno — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:47:58 GMT

From Hakan Eskici's blog:

A security issue has been identified with Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 and we have recently published an update that fixes it.

Installation Notice

Please note that this is a full release, so you will need to uninstall any existing versions of Web Access before installing this update.

Update: Instructions to patching your installation without the need to uninstall/reinstall TSWA)

Update #2: KB article 961267 is now available.

Determining if the update is installed

Take a look at the About page (Help > About) in Web Access.
The version number will be 9.0.3275 for TSWA 2008 SP1 Update.

Download: Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 Power Tool

Workaround: Team Explorer window is empty

neno — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:21:00 GMT

If this is the case...

Try...

Make sure Visual Studio is closed (and devenv.exe not in memory anymore)
Run: devenv /setup
Check if it's fixed already. If not, close down VS again.
Run: devenv /resetuserdata

The Team Explorer window should now look like expected again.

(Thanks to Sven Hubert for the screenshot and workaround verification.)

Update Warning: Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (KB948109) might break Reporting Services

neno — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:25:00 GMT

Name des Updates und Nummer:

Security Update for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (KB948109)
version 9.00.3068.00 released on 7/8/2008

Applies to:

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 with Reporting Services installed

Symptoms & Result:

After installation the SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services service might not start. Therefore the Reporting Services cannot be used anymore.

Distribution:

The Update is distributed via Windows Update.

Workaround:

Uninstall the update (requires a restart).

My recommendation:
(for your internal SQL server you use for TFS)

Do not install the update and wait for the next service pack release.

Related Links:

Visual Studio 2008, .NET 3.5 and TFS 2008 Service Pack 1 released

neno — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:31:00 GMT

Service Packs for VSTS/TFS do not only contain bug fixes, but quite a few nice new features as you can read here (more general) and here (TFS-specific).

Download links:

TFS Installation Guide
Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Service Pack 1 (full)
(updates TFS, Team Build and TFS Proxy)
Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (Online installer)
Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (ISO)
(updates Visual Studio and Team Explorer; requires 4.225 MB free HDD space)
.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (Online installer)
.NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (full)

If you have trouble installing SP1 look here and here.

Tip #1: Uninstall Visual Studio Hotfixes first

If you previously installed a Visual Studio 2008 Hotfix, you must run the Hotfix Cleanup Utility before installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1. For more information, see Visual Studio 2008 Hotfix Cleanup Utility for Installing Visual Studio 2008 SP1.

Tip #2: Have enough disk space available on your primary hard drive:

You can read here why.

Tip #3: If you have Team Explorer or TSWA on your TFS you need to install... (Thanks to Hakan Eskici)

... Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 and TFS 2008 Service Pack 1 (in that order!).

Tip #4: Integrate installation of TFS and SP1 ("Slipstream")

The steps to produce a so-called "slipstream" installation package are documented in the TFS Installation Guide in the chapter "How to: Integrate the Installation of Team Foundation Server and Service Pack 1".

There are a few reasons why you must do that (e.g. upgrading to SQL Server 2008) you can read in Brian Harry's blog post.

Tip #5: Ignore Windows Update reboot prompt (Thanks to Brian Harry)

If you get a Windows Update prompt to reboot during SP1 installation, ignore it (don't reboot). Wait until after the SP1 installation completes and then reboot.

Tip #6: Uninstall and reinstall Team System for Database Development GDR (Thanks to Brian Harry)

If you have a prerelease of the Team System for Database Development GDR (that supports SQL 2008) installed, you will need to reinstall it after upgrading to SP1.

Screenshots from applying TFS 2008 SP1:

Screenshots from applying VS 2008 SP1 (online installer) on at TFS with only Team Explorer installed:

Users can see all team projects after upgrading from TFS 2005 to 2008

neno — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:07:17 GMT

Make sure all team project members are added to the appropriate groups (Project Administrators, Contributors and Readers).
For every team project remove the "[Server]\Team Foundation Valid Users" group from the team project settings (Team Project Settings » Securty).
Done. Regular members now should only see team projects where they have permissions.

Enjoy!

FIX: TFS 2008: Delete lost when you merge from delete-branch to trunk

neno — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 09:22:00 GMT

> KB article

> Hotfix download

Beware of configuration changes - TFS might not like them

neno — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:48:47 GMT

If one of the following action are planned you should ready the appropriate documentation:

Documentation on how to troubleshoot TFS issues

neno — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:45:23 GMT

Check the Windows Event Log.
Run TFS Best Practices Analyzer.
(part of the Power Tools, requires PowerShell to be installed first)
TFS-Team Explorer 2008 Troubleshooting Guide (@ MSDN Forums)
Have a look at the available troubleshooting documentation on MSDN:
For connection trouble have a look at:
Troubleshooting connections to TFS

Uninstalling TFS 2005 (services) on the app tier removes reporting services virtual directories

neno — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:19:00 GMT

After uninstalling TFS 2005 (services) from a standby TFS application tier the SQL Server Reporting Services were not available, i.e. browsing http://server/reports and http://server/reportserver/ resulted in a 404 error.

Workaround:

Run the Reporting Services Configuration Tool and recreate both virtual directories and re-configure the identities.

(Thanks to Daniel Hackel who administers this environment.)

FIX: An unexpected error occurred while trying to add a web part to a project portal in TFS 2005

neno — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:42:00 GMT

Due to a lot of requests about this pretty common problem.

Steps you did:

You browsed for a web part:
You selected one and hit "Add":
You got the error message: "An unexpected error occurred."

This is a know issue with WSS 2.0 and a hot fix [1] can be requested at Microsoft which corrects this behavior.

I tried this with various customers and we could then successfully add new web parts after applying it.

Enjoy!

[1] http://support.microsoft.com/kb/915746/en-us

Known Work Item History Limitations for Links & Attachments

neno — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:30:00 GMT

They are two major problems when looking into the history with regard to links.

1. No clue what has changed:
If you remove an attachment and add a completely different one the history will indicate that there was a change (revision gets in incremented by 1), but it won't tell you what has changed since TFS only tracks the numbers (e.g. number of external links).

2. Work Item links are only reflected in history on one side:

You have two work items: item 52 and item 53.

You decide to link item 53 with item 52.

Both items show the work item link under their "Links" tab.

Item 53 shows the new link in the history:

But the history of Item 52 shows no changes at all:

TFS 2008 Trials: How to extend the trial?

neno — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:01:00 GMT

Since Team Foundation Server 2008 was released end of November 2007 the early adopters which for some reasons have not obtained a product key yet are facing the problem of expiring trial licenses on their TFS servers.

I definitely recommend to find out when your TFS trial expires. You can use the Version Detector Tool [1], which Brian Harry [2] blogged about.

If you have trouble getting a product key in time:

From ten days before it expires you can extend the trial period for 30 additional days (using the tool mentioned above).
If that's not enough contact Microsoft to get additional 30 days.

Eventually people will check for the expiration date before they actually learn it the "hard way"...

So: don't be a fool, use the tool!

:-)

[1] http://blogs.msdn.com/bharry/archive/2008/01/15/checking-your-tfs-version-and-extending-trials.aspx

[2] http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/techfellow/harry/default.mspx

Some Code Analysis Rules gone in Visual Studio 2008

neno — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:15:47 GMT

I was very sad to hear that a few beloved rules were removed from code analysis (aka FxCop) in Visual Studio 2008. Here’s a list of the removed rules:

Removed due to removal of data flow engine:

CA1062 ValidateArgumentsOfPublicMethods
CA1303 DoNotPassLiteralsAsLocalizedParameters
CA2100 ReviewSqlQueriesForSecurityVulnerabilities
CA2202 DoNotDisposeObjectsMultipleTimes
CA2204 LiteralsShouldBeSpelledCorrectly
CA2215 DisposeMethodsShouldCallBaseClassDispose
CA2241 ProvideCorrectArgumentsToFormattingMethods
CA2000 DisposeObjectsBeforeLosingScope

Removed due to high noise or no longer applicable analysis:

CA1807 AvoidUnnecessaryStringCreation
CA1817 DoNotCallPropertiesThatCloneValuesInLoops
CA1818 DoNotConcatenateStringsInsideLoops

Analysis in this rule was moved to IdentifiersShouldBeCasedCorrectly:

CA1705 LongAcronymsShouldBePascalCased
CA1706 ShortAcronymsShouldBeUppercase

Analysis in this rule was moved to IdentifiersShouldNotContainTypeNames:

CA1718 AvoidLanguageSpecificTypeNamesInParameters

Analysis in this rule was moved to OverrideLinkDemandsShouldBeIdenticalToBase:

CA2110 SecureGetObjectDataOverrides

For more information why those rules were moved or removed see this explaining post over on the Code Analysis Team Blog as well as this feedback on Microsoft Connect.

Method not found: 'Void Microsoft.Reporting.PreviewItemContext.SetPath()' when using Report View in TSWA

neno — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 03:46:00 GMT

If you get the following error message above when using the Report View in Team System Web Access…

… you need to install the Microsoft Report Viewer Redistributable 2005 on your TFS App Tier (as described here) to make it work again.

How it looks when it works

Open a work item or a execute a work item query.
Click “Tools” > “Report View”
This report should appear now:

Check-In is slow when using exclusive check-out?

neno — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 12:53:00 GMT

It’s still hot: Microsoft released a fix for slow check-in’s if you’re using exclusive check-out feature yesterday:

FIX: The check-in process may be very slow when you use the Source Control feature in Visual Studio 2005 Team System