I have created an "Agent-based Release Template" which has the release path SIT->RQA->PREPROD->PROD->DR. We are currently waiting for Qa to signoff of the PREPROD release for a weekend publication to PROD. When we started this release we did not know the value for some of the configuration variable in a component that will replace tokens in the web.config file, so we left them blank. I have on previous version of release management been able to edit these values while a release is "in flight" for an environment that has not been released yet. Unfortunately I have not been able to edit the values for this release and I am unsure if that is by design or if the release needs to be in a specific state. Does anyone know why I can't change the variables?
It's by design, I believe. Typically, when a value needs to change for a specific stage, you restart the entire release.
I believe this is what you are seeing when you try to edit the configuration variables.
This is because you have tasks with the same name in that stage.
I would have recommended to edit the task names and keep them unique. But since you are using 'Agent Based Release Template' you are left with only one option.
You need to manually edit the configuration variable for each tasks of that stage. From my screenshot you can see that i am allowed to edit the configuration variable for Deploy using PS/DSC task.
For informational purpose, microsoft released an all new version of release management with TFS 2015 update 2. You might want to look at it.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/Library/vs/alm/Release/overview
Related
For some reason I can't get SQL Server 2017 installed on my Windows 10 machine.
First thing to do with this buggy installer is that I had to uninstall VCRuntime 2017 in order for the installer to work.
And now, the installer is stuck at this point exactly every time I try to install it:
What I've tried so far:
Killing msiexec process
Running the setup with additional parameter as mentioned here
Setup.exe /SkipInstallerRunCheck
Restarting ... reinstalling ... turning off anti-virus ...
[Solved]
The problem was due to a background download that was taking forever especially on a low internet speed (i.e. python or R-support component).
[Solution]
If you really need python or R-support just wait until download is complete
Else, deselect python and R-support from the component list.
(or) kill the child process for python or R-support component downloader from task manager.
UPDATE:
The actual problem turned out to be the R-support component(s) slowly downloading in the background locking up the installation GUI
with no notification or warning show to the user as to what is
actually going on.
So it seems this "locked install problem" can be caused by installing several different components, at least by Python or R-support. As mentioned below, please check any available logs or event logs for clues.
In summary, options:
Maybe try to unselect such components for install if you do not need them.
If you need the components, leave the setup to complete, and check progress in log files as explained below. Verify Internet access (proxy?).
Stuck Download?
UPDATE: Did you see this blog? Looks like the setup tries to download and install the Python runtime, and this can take forever. Are you behind a proxy btw? No direct connection to the Internet? If so I suppose this could also cause further problems. Probably not the cause, but worth a mention.
Apparently you can check the following log file for progress for the installation:
%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\140\Setup
Bootstrap\Log\DATE_TIME\RSetup.log
DATE_TIME in the above path must be converted to your valid values. For example: 20170804_162723 (date part and time part).
See this answer as well: SQL server 2016 installation freeze. You could also try the suggestion to deselect all components you do not need to prevent any background downloads?
General Debugging
Leaving in the general purpose debugging suggestions below.
Generic Advice: From experience I would create a new local admin user and try to install using that account. This is to avoid any "unclean" or special conditions that have occurred in your user profile or registry during regular Windows use. Might not do much, but sometimes it gets the job done with surprising ease. Worth a try I think.
Some Further Things: I wrote up a little check list a while back, I'll add it and see if it inspires some new ideas that can help you. See under "Core Deployment Problems". That first "check list" was condensed from a longer and somewhat excessive first writeup - one of those answers that unintentionally turned into a blog and maybe a hard one to read.
Logging: Did you check log files and / or event logs properly for clues as to what is happening? I find the best approach for deployment to enable logging for all MSI installations. The performance hit it triggers is minuscule compared to the benefit of having a real log-file always available when you suddenly need one. You can enable logging for all MSI files as explained on installsite.org (section: "Globally for all setups on a machine"). MSI log files will then just sit in your %TEMP% folder after installation. They have a random hex name, and you can flush them all regularly if you do not need them. You sort by modify date / time to find the latest one(s) created - obviously.
Jedi trick: You will want to go home and re-think your life if you don't enable logging for all MSI files. Moral of the story: MSI log files are cool. They are very verbose, but they are beautiful. There are some hints on interpreting them here (bottom).
My 2 cents: SQL Server Installer consists of several small MSI installers. MSI installers can only be installed one after each other (as fas as I know). In my case, I launched another MSI setup while installing SQL Server. This caused SQL Server Setup to hold until I finished the concurrently running setup.
So, at least in my case the problem was self-made.
You have to remove configuration settings for SQL Server from Windows Registry editor.
Sql server
2017
VS
A recent question in the Codename One discussion forum raised a question I often face when I'm waiting for a fix.
Sometimes the Codename One team indicates a fix would be coming in a couple of weeks and other times they indicate that its already fixed. Some of that opacity obviously relates to the update of the cloud servers but its unclear for me whether its just the cloud server & the plugin or is there something that I'm missing. Why isn't there a single update process?
I'd really like a more definitive answer like How does Codename One work?
for this.
Codename One is comprised of several different pieces and an update usually means we update only one of them. At a high level there are really just 2 major types of updates: libraries & servers.
We update libraries once every 3-5 weeks we update servers all the time (sometimes more than once per day sometimes ever 3-4 days).
Here is a slightly more accurate overview of what it means to update Codename One:
Plugin & related tools - the plugin itself provides the project properties, server connectivity and designer/gui builder tools. It updates as part of the native IDE update process once every 3-5 weeks. You need to explicitly accept an update prompt from the IDE in order to get this update. Bugs in the plugin itself or features for the designer/GUI builder need to go thru that process...
Build.xml - this is technically a part of the plugin update but you need to actually accept changes that we make to the build.xml to get some functionality. On occasion a new feature (e.g. the new GUI builder) needs to update the build.xml code but this will only happen if you go into project properties, click OK and accept the prompt to update the build.xml (if such an update exists).
Client libraries - these are the API's you use when writing Codename One code (typically CodenameOne.jar and related ports). We usually issue an update to those once every 3-5 weeks together with the plugin update. The plugin ships with these but they are only applied to new projects... When you send a build we implicitly update your libraries to the latest version using a separate update process, you can also use "Update Client Libs" within the Codename One preference to update these manually without sending a build.
Device libraries - when you send a build to the servers we use the latest version of the client libraries that might be newer than what you see in the client libs but might not be the latest git master. This allows us to rapidly deploy & test device fixes. This also allows you to work with the code and use newer features that weren't pushed to the Client Libraries. The process of updating the servers is a bit adhoc so there is some opacity around that, we are looking at making this more transparent.
VM & builders - The builder code and VM relate to the server side scripts that generate the code. When you have a compilation error on the servers or need an enhancement there we need to deploy it in a process similar to the device libraries deployment.
Certificate wizard update - this tool is updated in a completely separate update process despite shipping in the plugin. We had a lot of concerns about Apple changing things suddenly when initially creating this so we decided to allow this to update instantly.
We have four stages in our release path (DEV, TEST, UAT and PROD) and I had been planning on using the validation step on DEV as a release to TEST gateway. If the developers think that it's worth the test team looking at a build they approve it otherwise they reject it (with different approvers on the other stages).
I'm looking to get some sort of clean up running on the build drop folder for builds that have been rejected (or abandonded). Either by deleting them or by changing the keep indefinitely flag on the TFS build.
Is there anyway to do this manually (or better yet automatically?)
I suspect it could be done by querying the RM database and calling the TFS api but I'd like to save the effort of doing this myself.
Meant to say that this is partially covered here (with a "no"):
How do we delete a release in TFS 2013 Release Management?
But it's only really the drop folder I care about not the release.
The answer is still basically "no". It's clear you already get how all of the pieces work -- the retain indefinitely flag is set when a release starts, and it's up to you to manually clear it if you don't want the build to be retained.
That said, it really should be a configurable option. It just isn't.
I've started working on an existing app and the only copy of the code is in SalesForce. How do I back this up (export it) such that I can rollback to this original code if I make a mess?
There are a few options to backup or add version control to your Salesforce configuration or Apex code.
Only edit code or make configuration changes in a Sandbox (Setup -> Administration Setup -> Data Management -> Sandbox) or Developer Edition. This keeps your changes separate from your production instance in case something goes wrong, and if the Sandbox gets too messed up, you can always refresh it from production and start clean (losing all previous work).
You can use Subversion through the Force.com Eclipse IDE for version control (for code or object configuration). Check out this answer for details on how to set it up.
Another option is to create multiple Sandboxes, if your Salesforce edition allows it, as "snapshots" of your instance. However, Sandboxes do expire (after 30 days of being inactive).
I'm working at a company that does several releases to production every year and during the build up to each release we gather up a collection of 1 time sql install scripts like table creation and dataports.
The way things currently work is that after the release to production, we branch, tag then we delete all 1 time scripts from subversion.
This seems to get the job done but to me it never seemed like the proper way to solve the problem.
Could you imagine deleting all your sourcecode every release and then writing patches for production?
The downsides that I see is if you want to reference and old script you have to checkout a tag or branch from subversion.
Our SVN Repo currently looks something like this
svnrepo/mywebsite/src
svnrepo/mywebsite/database/storedprocs
svnrepo/mywebsite/database/installscripts
I was thinking that a more accurate way to model what we want to do in SVN is the following.
Use an svn:externals attribute to point to the latest version. Then after every release just point it to the latest.
svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/src/
svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/src/database/installscripts/
-> svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/database/Release_3
svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/database/Release_1
svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/database/Release_2
svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/database/Release_3
Using this model we no longer svn delete any sql scripts and enable a database developer to check out svnrepo/mywebsite/trunk/database/ and easily view all the database development that has occurred.
Any comments on my ideas, the current structure, or the best way to manage this situation?
Thanks
Synchronising database changes and code changes in subversion is hard
If you have the option of building the Database from scratch you can put the whole DDL into the repository along with the code, then you don’t need to worry about which changes go with which release.
Looking at your situation I don’t think you need to use externals (they can cause headaches). You also don’t need to delete everything. It is not too difficult to check out a branch (or you could just use a repository browser).
You could even put the old db releases into a separate tag when you release so they are all in one place, which the database people can have checked out. If you are doing releases once a year this won’t be hard.
This question may also help