Unable to add a new item to source control?

I hope someone can help here, we're having an incredibly annoying time with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual SourceSafe 8.

Basically, when anyone involved with the Web Application Project attempts to add a new "item" (eg. a CSS file) they get the following error:

An error or user cancellation occurred during checkout. Some files may not have been checked out. (File is exclusively checked out by another user.)

If you click on "Details" in the box it says that [ourProject].csproj and [ourProject].csproj.vspscc are "exclusively checked out by another user". Except they're not checked out by anyone we know...

Another infobox then pops up and says:

The command you are attempting cannot be completed because the file '[ourProject].csproj' that must be modified cannot be changed. If the file is under source control, you may want to check it out; if the file is read-only on disk, you may want to change its attributes.

Obviously we cannot check out the file [ourProject].csproj, as that's the problem we're having, and obviously (because the file is under source control) it has its READ ONLY attribute flagged. (If I unflag it then I can add files to project once again, but that doesn't seem like a good idea.)

Does anyone know what we can do to fix this problem. It's obviously hindering progress at the moment and we're all pulling our hair out.

Thanks for any help.

Thanks a lot everyone, we switched to SVN!

Thanks for your quick response. I didn't realise you could see the properties of the file from within VSS itself. I've checked it and it does indeed consider the file to be checked out by one of our coders... Problem is, when you look at the project on his machine, it says the file is checked out by someone else. Very annoying.Is there some way to force VSS to undo a checkout?

Django Reinhardt 2009-10-30 15:24:55

I've checked online and several places say that just logging into VSS Explorer as an Administrator will give you the ability to Undo Checkout... but the option appears greyed out for me, Admin or not. Very annoying :(

Django Reinhardt 2009-10-30 15:48:37

Yup in Visual Sourcesafe go to the file/files checked out, select them and right click, undo the check out. The problem you face is people may have made changes to there local copy. They will stay local ofc and may need merging. People may have been adding new items so as you upload your local copy, you risk losing someone elses changes. but once you do finally get it back in order all will be well again. Remind developers not to try and circumvent the easily breakable security in VSS and it probably won't happen again :)

Robert 2009-10-30 15:49:02

If you can't undo the check out. Try doing a check in instead.

Robert 2009-10-30 15:50:08

pps if i log in as an admin I do have the ability to undo someone else check out. The default user name is..... admin and far too often the password is blank.

Robert 2009-10-30 15:54:03

Ah, my total misunderstanding prevented this simply solution from working. Of course, as a Vista user, I assumed "logged in as Admin" was meant to deal with UAC. As it turns out everybody was referring to the actual Admin account within VSS. Whoops! :) The dev who it said had checked out the files was able to check them back in via VSS Explorer. So all solved! Thanks a lot for your help!

Django Reinhardt 2009-10-30 16:05:47

ansaurus

tags:

views:

answers:

Unable to add a new item to source control?

related questions