BUG: "Update workspace" button silently fails and lies when there are changes in the workspace

[mklasson]

I posted

https://forum.plasticscm.com/topic/23287-workspace-update-blocked-due-to-pending-changes-dialog-not-shown/#comment-45756

7 months ago and then a follow-up 2 weeks ago. I still haven't heard anything from you.

The status bar says "Workspace successfully updated" after pressing it, but that's a complete lie. It fails to update and does nothing.

Are you aware of the problem and intend to do something about it?

[Rafael]

Hi,

I am reviewing your activity and you did post on the "PlasticX Early Adopter Program's Issue Reporting" section, sorry we missed your report as we moved PlasticX to be out of early adopters only.

Do you have a hidden_changes.conf file? This file would in fact produce this behaviour, if a hidden file was modified outside of Plastic SCM control.
 
The next time you are hit with this, can you please run cm status --hiddenchanged, and report back if there is anything there? Also, you can reveal hidden changes in the Pending Changes view -> options via the below setting.

 
I hope this proves helpful, please let me know if not, and we will do some further digging.

Regards,

Rafael

Unity Plastic SCM Support
Virtualize your Workspace. Make it dynamic.

[mklasson]

Hi Rafael,

It's good to finally hear from someone.

 

No, I don't have a hidden_changes.conf file. The problem seems much simpler than that.

 

I can see in the pending changes list that I have changes. In that situation, when I click "Update workspace" in the old legacy client I get an extremely helpful message stating that fact and offering solutions:

 

By contrast, if I do the same in the new plasticX client (currently v11.0.16.7419 as I don't want to update and lose the ability to use the legacy client) then all I get is the status bar saying:

That message obviously makes me think the workspace was ... successfully updated. It was not. Plastic _failed_ to update the workspace and then made matters much worse by telling me everything went great.

 

Now, the ideal solution is to make the new client behave exactly like the old one does, informing me of reality and offering help.

The bare minimum solution is to make the new client say "Workspace update FAILED because there are pending changes."

A program telling you something was successful when it actually failed is obviously a cardinal sin.

 

Also, can you please confirm that you have indeed removed the legacy client from the newest version? Like I said, I'm reluctant to update if that's the case as the legacy client is still a useful well-functioning backup. Maybe fixing this bug will push me over the edge though.

 

Thank you,

Mikael

 

[Rafael]

Hi Mikael,

8 hours ago, mklasson said:

No, I don't have a hidden_changes.conf file. The problem seems much simpler than that.

In that case can you check your preferences ->Other options and check you have the following selected:

If this does not help please open a ticket with an email to suppor@codicesoftware.com so we can review your logs in detail.

Regards,

Rafael

Unity Plastic SCM Support
Virtualize your Workspace. Make it dynamic.

[mklasson]

I feel like I'm failing to communicate with you. Did you read past the line about "hidden_changes.conf" in my previous message?

 

Quote

If this does not help please open a ticket with an email to suppor@codicesoftware.com so we can review your logs in detail.

How could your suggestion about the setting possibly help with what I've been describing?

As best I can tell, the client behaviour I'm describing would not be valid for _any_ of those option settings.

• If my setting was "Allow" then the workspace should update successfully. It does _not_, despite plastic saying so.
• If my setting was "Allow, showing a warning" then the workspace should update successfully and plastic show me a warning. It does neither of those.
• If my setting was "Do not allow, show an error" then plastic should show me an error. It does not.

 

Again, plastic _says_ the update was successful, but in reality it wasn't. The workspace was _not_ updated.

 

For the record, my setting is "Allow, showing a warning", which is what the legacy client does. The non-legacy client instead shows the buggy behaviour I've been describing repeatedly here.

 

Am I having a severe brainfart and completely misunderstanding something? Could you _please_ take a moment to read my entire message and tell me if you agree or disagree with my conclusion that the behaviour I'm describing is a bug? If there's something you don't understand about what I'm saying then please ask me about it. I feel like I'm wasting precious time currently.

 

You really don't need to review my logs in detail to be able to tell me whether what I'm describing is actually a problem as I'm claiming or whether I'm just stupid and misunderstanding something crucial. The latter seems unlikely at this point, but if that's the case, again, _please_ tell me so I can stop wasting all our times. If it's the former then we can move on to whether it's some weird glitch in my particular system or whether it's actually a bug in your plastic client that you can then fix.

 

Quote

If this does not help please open a ticket with an email to suppor@codicesoftware.com so we can review your logs in detail.

I'm assuming that should be "support@codicesoftware.com". Sure, I'll send an email there as well.

 

If you could also please answer my question about whether the legacy client has really been removed from the newest plastic release I'd very much appreciate that. If you don't actually know then just say so. Currently my questions and comments seem to just be ignored or skimmed over which is very frustrating. And this is on top of waiting 8 months for any response whatsoever and making two follow-up bumps since I first tried to bring the problem to your attention on your own bug-reporting forum. I apologise that my frustration about all this is no doubt coming across to some degree. The clear lesson seems to be to not waste time reporting bugs, which presumably is not the lesson you want to reinforce.

 

Here's the core problem of everything I've said again:

Plastic _says_ the update was successful, but in reality it wasn't. The workspace was _not_ updated.

 

 

[Rafael]

Hi Mikael,

I am asking you to share some configuration details of your client because at the moment I have not been able to reproduce this issue and neither we have similar reports elsewhere.

19 hours ago, mklasson said:

You really don't need to review my logs in detail to be able to tell me whether what I'm describing is actually a problem

In fact I will need your logs to be able to identify, reproduce and fix the bug, clearly from the start we are talking about a bug, I am sorry if I made you understand that it was not, I thought it was clear for both of us, I am just trying to find the cause but with the current information that you have provided is not possible.

19 hours ago, mklasson said:

I'm assuming that should be "support@codicesoftware.com". Sure, I'll send an email there as well.

Yes, correct, please attach your logs (located at C:/users/user/appdata/local/.plastic4/logs on windows and User/.plastic4/logs on Mac) and we can keep finding the problem from there.

19 hours ago, mklasson said:

please answer my question about whether the legacy client has really been removed from the newest plastic release

No, the legacy Client executable has not been removed yet, we just removed the option to switch back to legacy from the PlasticX interface, you can still find legacy in the installation folder usual location.

Regards,

Rafael

Unity Plastic SCM Support
Virtualize your Workspace. Make it dynamic.

[mklasson]

3 hours ago, Rafael said:

clearly from the start we are talking about a bug, I am sorry if I made you understand that it was not, I thought it was clear for both of us

I see. It was not clear to me that that was clear to you. Again, I'm sorry for the frustrated tone in my previous comment.

 

Quote

Yes, correct, please attach your logs (located at C:/users/user/appdata/local/.plastic4/logs on windows and User/.plastic4/logs on Mac) and we can keep finding the problem from there.

Okay, I'll do so.

 

Quote

No, the legacy Client executable has not been removed yet, we just removed the option to switch back to legacy from the PlasticX interface, you can still find legacy in the installation folder usual location.

Thank you, that's very helpful.