I've googled this, and saw that someone had a similar problem here -> stackoverflow, but as luck would have it, unresolved.
I have an issue where my P4 client is not able to see or access any submitted files that are newer than 4 months old.
Background - My root directory/db files are on D drive which is undisturbed. I got a nasty virus yesterday, so I checked in all my workspace stuff and recovered to a December drive of my OS. Now that I've successfully booted up in my December version of my OS (where the same version P4V and P4A is already installed), my P4V is only able to see and access files up to 12/15/2015 - nothing after. The drive image I recovered from is dated 12/19/2016. Yet, I can physically inspect all my post Dec P4 checkins in the physical location of my DB on D drive. It's ALL THERE.
Here's really interesting info - out of curiosity, I recovered back to my Virus laden OS from yesterday. Opened up P4V, and it is able to see and access all my files up till my very last submitted file which was checked in yesterday.
Other important into
- The depot, stream, and workspace that my p4 is using is the same between my recovered Dec recovery OS, and yesterday's Virus laden OS. Nothing was ever changed in my P4 settings.
System info:
Windows 10
P4V and P4A - NTX64/2014.3/1007540 (for both my recovered windows image from Dec, and yesterday's virus laden windows)
P4 is my achilless heel. Help appreciated. I will not take offense if you explain things to me like a 3rd grader.
Cheers,
Paul
First off, I used incorrect terminology in my original question. I had my depots on D drive and everything else in their default locations on C.
Where I had it wrong: in the belief that as long as I had my depot files backed up to a safe location, I was protected. There is more to it than that :|
What went wrong: When my PC crashed, I recovered to a 5 month earlier December version of my Windows install which means (obviously) I have December's install of P4 with database files only aware of files I checked in up to December. I did indeed have 1000s of files check in after Dec, all alive and intact, but P4 is simply unaware of it. An assumption (which I had) that P4 simply peeks into the Depots to stay up to date of their contents is an incorrect and dangerous one.
To those who may benefit: For those do-it-yourselfers, these are the 2 things in Perforce you should be backing up if you want to be able to do a full recovery later down the line when things go bad:
Database files. By default, they live in the Perforce application’s “server” directory. For me, there are 67 database files in my C:\Program Files\Perforce\Server. They are all prefixed with db.* and it’s these files that P4 uses to “know” the current state of things, like, your changlists, checked-out files, all your workspaces and their settings, depots and their settings, etc, etc etc. Oh, and what files you even have in your depot! Unfortunately, when backing up database files, you can’t just copy/paste them, but must use command line commands to properly generate 2 other file types (journal, checkpoint) specifically for recovery purposes. It is these files that you'll generate new database files from in a recovery operation.
Depot directories. Depots specify directory trees that your files get stored to, and checked out from when working in your workspace. Files stored here won’t be in their native format, and non-binary files will have their contents tweaked on top of that. Depot directory trees can be manually copied/paste to a backup location.
Proper backup/recovery information can be found here. Like many things, it’s simple once you understand it, but reading this is a bit of a mouth full. It would have helped me to just see slightly fleshed out sample commands along with the reading material, so I’ve included some here. These are the bare minimum command line commands (plus other manual stuff), and will recover a checkpoint, not checkpoint + journal (again, take a look at the link to get a better understanding). Also, I would recommend practicing backup/recovery in a safe throw away environment (or throw away assets) to get the hang of this before doing it for real.
---------- Backup ------------
Despite all the material in the link, it only takes a bare minimum of 3 command line commands (plus other non-command stuff) to do a proper P4 backup, and 1 cmd (among other things) to recover on my end. Again this is only a partially fleshed out sample to illustrate what the command prompt portion of backup/recovery looks like. There is a little more to it than simply running these to get you where you want.
(note: On Windows, you may need to start a windows command prompt as administrator)
>p4 set P4USER=superuser_name
>p4 -q verify //...
>p4d -r "C:\Program Files\Perforce\Server" -jc <yourBackupDirectory>\<prefixOfYourChoosing>
---------- Recovery ------------
>p4d -f -r "C:\Program Files\Perforce\Server" -jr <yourBackupDirectory>\<prefixYouChose>.ckp.1
In my case, I had to use the -f flag due to errors when not using it.
Cheers,
Paul W
Related
- how to uncompress perforce Depot files?
The files I have now ending with [,v] and some files end with [,d] containing [1.1.gz].
What i did In details:
In P4V I created a Workspace, put some important files, Submitted it to the Depot then decided to delete what's in the Depot by clicking Mark for Delete it just mark it with a red X what I think, So I head to C:\Program Files\Perforce\Server\depot and deleting it from there, now the files in the Recycle Bin but doing so doesn't make it disappear from P4V so I opened P4Abmin in the Depot tap I did Obliterate and its gone finally.
Later discovered that Marking files for Delete in the Depot delets it from the Workspace, and only thing that I have is what I restored from the Recycle Bin and it's compressed files, how can I uncompress it.
Don't touch the Perforce server's depot or db files unless you know what you're doing -- normally the server handles the job of managing those files and the relationships between them, and randomly messing with those files will usually break things, much like if you randomly shuffled blocks on your hard disk around without knowing how your filesystem works. I mention this first so that you'll know for next time, and second so that if you happen to have access to a time machine, you can fix this problem by going back and informing your past self to keep their paws out of P4ROOT. :)
If in the future you want to temporarily delete files from the depot, use the normal "Mark for Delete" command in P4V (or p4 delete in the CLI) followed by "Submit". If you want to permanently delete them, that's what the "obliterate" command is for. In neither case should you be deleting files out from under the server -- everything should happen from the client (that is, P4V, the p4 CLI, P4Win, etc).
If you restore the deleted files to exactly where they were, you should be able to rely on Perforce to get the files back, provided you have not already obliterated them from the db. (Hopefully obliterate noticed the archive files were gone and it failed with an error instead of blasting the db entries...)
If you no longer have the db entries for the files, you can try to extract the archives manually with command line tools (luckily the content isn't encrypted or in a weird proprietary format) -- you should be able to gunzip the .gz files and co (RCS) the ,v files. I'd expect most unzip utilities to understand gzip, but RCS is a pretty old format so you may have to do a little digging to find Windows tools for it (I think Cygwin may have RCS tools bundled with it). Good luck!
Recently I was asked the following question in an interview.
Suppose I try to create a new file named myfile.txt in the /home/pavan directory.
It should automatically create myfileCopy.txt in the same directory.
A.txt then it automatically creates ACopy.txt,
B.txt then BCopy.txt in the same directory.
How can this be done using a script? I may know that this script should run in crontab.
Please don't use inotify-tools.
Can you explain why you want to do?
Tools like VIM can create a backup copy of a file you're working on automatically. Other tools like Dropbox (which works on Linux, Windows, and Mac) can version files, so it backs up all the copies of the file for the last 30 days.
You could do something by creating aliases to the tools you use for creating these file. You edit a file with the tools you tend to use, and the alias could create a copy before invoking a tool.
Otherwise, your choice is to use crontab to occasionally make backups.
Addendum
let me explain suppose i have directory /home/pavan now i create the file myfile.txt in that directory , immediately now i should automatically generate myfileCopy.txt file in the same folder
paven
There's no easy user tool that could do that. In fact, the way you stated it, it's not clear exactly what you want to do and why. Backups are done for two reasons:
To save an older version of the file in case I need to undo recent changes. In your scenario, I'm simply saving a new unchanged file.
To save a file in case of disaster. I want that file to be located elsewhere: On a different computer, maybe in a different physical location, or at least not on the same disk drive as my current file. In your case, you're making the backup in the same directory.
Tools like VIM can be set to automatically backup a file you're editing. This satisfy reason #1 stated above: To get back an older revision of the file. EMACs could create an infinite series of backups.
Tools like Dropbox create a backup of your file in a different location across the aether. This satisfies reason #2 which will keep the file incase of a disaster. Dropbox also versions files you save which also is reason #1.
Version control tools can also do both, if I remember to commit my changes. They store all changes in my file (reason #1) and can store this on a server in a remote location (reason #2).
I was thinking of crontab, but what would I backup? Backup any file that had been modified (reason #1), but that doesn't make too much sense if I'm storing it in the same directory. All I would have are duplicate copies of files. It would make sense to backup the previous version, but how would I get a simple crontab to know this? Do you want to keep the older version of a file, or only the original copy?
The only real way to do this is at the system level with tools that layer over the disk IO calls. For example, at one location, we used Netapps to create a $HOME/.snapshot directory that contained the way your directory looked every minute for an hour, every hour for a day, and every day for a month. If someone deleted a file or messed it up, there was a good chance that the version of the file exists somewhere in the $HOME/.snapshot directory.
On my Mac, I use a combination of Time Machine - which backs up the entire drive every hour, and gives me a snapshot of my drive that stretches back over a year and a half) and Dropbox which keeps my files stored in the main Dropbox server somewhere. I've been saved many times by that combination.
I now understand that this was an interview question. I'm not sure what was the position. Did the questioner want you to come up with a system wide way of implementing this, like a network tech position, or was this one of those brain leaks that someone comes up with at the spur of the moment when they interview someone, but were too drunk the night before to go over what they should really ask the applicant?
Did they want a whole discussion on what backups are for, and why backing up a file immediately upon creation in the same directory is a stupid idea non-optimal solution, or were they attempting to solve an issue that came up, but aren't technical enough to understand the real issue?
I'm a very fresh user of Perfoce, so please be patient!
I am trying to create a commit (I understand it that in Perforce it is called a changelist) of the files which have been changed. It sort of happens automatically in other VC systems, but there seems to be no easy way of doing it in p4... The problem is (maybe) that I'm not editing the files by hand, the files are generated (please don't ask me why do I have to check in the generated files...) so the whole directory tree is getting removed and then copied over with the new files. But Perforce acts as if nothing happened. In both my workspace and the depot it displays the updated files, but when someone will check them out on another machine, the files will be of the previous version.
I'm fine with doing it either through GUI or through the command line. I'd prefer the command line, because that would spare me the trouble in the long run, but it doesn't seem like it should be much hassle either way.
In other words, let's say, this is the workflow I'm used to from SVN or Git:
Run status to see what changed.
Stage / add to commit what you want to be in the next revision.
Commit and send it to the versioning server.
What I'm not able to do is the "stage" phase - because the changes are not discovered automatically.
EDIT
Ah, I think, I figured it out: reconciliation was what I needed... well, I guess if you don't marry, this word would hardly ever happen in your vocabulary :)
It appears that the proper command is reconcile. Also, as Bryan Pendleton suggested there should be status, but I must have an older version of Perforces, which doesn't have this command. This command is also available from context menu in either depot or workspace panels of Perforce graphical interface, when you click on the modified file.
For no reason that I can see, I can no longer run a TortoiseSVN Update on a development directory on my portable Windows XP Professional SP3 machine, getting the error:
Previous operation has not finished; run 'cleanup' if it was interrupted
Please execute the 'Cleanup' command.
If I try running cleanup, I get another error,
cannot process the following paths: cannot move $ROOT_DIR/.svn/tmp/tmp-... to $ROOT_DIR/path/where/thing/should/go: no such file or directory
I have verified that both files exist, and actually from CMD.EXE prompt I am able to issue a MOVE with those two filenames and have it work correctly. It's no use because next time SVN tries to repeat the operation itself after creating a different tmp file name, and while CMD succeeded, SVN fails.
UPDATE: the path lengths are in both cases well below PATH_MAX, target file system is NTFS, and permissions are OK. Maybe I'll now try with FileMon to see whatever TortoiseSVN is really up to.
I tried downgrading TortoiseSVN but to no avail. Other repositories work OK between the same machines.
TortoiseSVN 1.7.9, Build 23248 - 32 Bit , 2012/08/30 18:25:37
Subversion 1.7.6,
apr 1.4.6
apr-utils 1.3.12
neon 0.29.6
OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012
zlib 1.2.7
Both server (OpenSuSE Linux 12.2) and client now run the latest version of SVN.
On Windows, I also cannot seem to get any more informative logs or information (I'm not very skilled with TortoiseSVN, I have always used the Linux command line version).
I might delete the local copy and run a checkout, but it's about 2 GB of data, and I'm on a slow connection, so it is really more of a "fly physically to server location and hook a copper Ethernet to the local network there" alternative. I'm reserving that as a sort of last ditch, nuclear option; I'd really rather understand what the problem is, for I fear it might happen again.
UPDATE
I've tried to delete remotely the subdirectory involved, committing the deletion on the server; deleting the subdirectory locally, and emptying the .svn/tmp subdirectory where I found sixteen tmp files, all copies of the one PNG causing problems.
I am still not able to perform any SVN subcommand, getting "Run cleanup!" error; on cleanup; I get a failed attempt to copy a tmpfile to the never-sufficiently-damned .PNG file, which no longer exists anywhere, into a directory that no longer exists anywhere.
I tried recreating the directory locally (but not the file!), no changes.
With FileMon, I traced the source PNG to 8e4c2389cf9d85c8b8ee54d49ea053c752a38187.svn-base in .svn/pristine subdirectory, tried removing it and got SVN complaining. I tried copying it to its intended destination (so that the file-as-it-should-be and the file-as-it-is are identical), no joy.
UPDATE
Well, this is weird. I decided to track everything that TortoiseSVN is doing using FileMon. I could see it checking the wc.db and search the item, checking for it in .svn/pristine (and finding it), copying it (unnecessarily if you ask me...) in .svn/tmp, and finally checking $DESTINATION_FILE (with correct case) using Windows Open() API. And getting PATH NOT FOUND. Yet the file is there, I can see it (and the name is less than 8.3 characters). And why PATH not found and not FILE not found?
Okay, it all boiled down to a directory that had been created remotely with a name ending with space. The file in itself was OK; the directory where it stood was not.
When updating, apparently, the directory got created but the name was shortened by Windows to exclude the final space.
To add to the difficulty of diagnosing, while TortoiseSVN did tell me what the problem was, it did so in the dialog box where the Arial font made the space in \path\to\your \file not clearly recognizable (it was, once I knew where to look, and compared that slash with the others. This one stood a little farther from the letter at its left).
Lesson learned: check really carefully the dialog file name, character by character (note to self: find a way of having it in Courier New if at all possible).
You may have two files in the repository that differ only in case. That's a problem on Windows. See this FAQ for details.
Can I rename a folder in Perforce from //depot/FooBar/ to //depot/Foobar/?
I've tried this by renaming from //depot/FooBar/ to //depot/Temp/ to //Depot/Foobar/ but the end result ends up the same as //depot/FooBar/.
Once it is in Perforce, the case remains set. As mentioned by Johan you can obliterate, set the name up correctly, and add it in again. However, there is a slight gotcha....
If anyone else (running Windows) has already synced the wrong-cased version, then when they sync again the right one, it will not change the case on their PC. This is a peculiarity of the Windows file system acknowledging case but still being fundamentally case-independent.
If a number of users have synced, and it is not convenient to get them to remove-from-client too (and blasting the folders from their machines), then you can resort to a dark and dirty Perforce technique called "Checkpoint surgery". It's not for the fainthearted, but you do this:
Stop your server, take a checkpoint.
Using your favourite text editor that can handle multi-megabyte files, search & replace all occurances of the old case name with the new. You could of course use a script too.
Replay your checkpoint file to recreate the Perforce database meta data.
Restart your server.
This will affect all user client specs transparently, and so when they sync they will get the right case as if by magic.
It sounds hairy, but I've had to do it before and as long as you take care, backup, do a trial run etc, then all should be OK.
Maybe not needed anymore, but here's the official Perforce HowTo about changing file cases on Windows and Unix: http://answers.perforce.com/articles/KB/3448/?q=change+file+case
I'm not sure about directories, but we've had this problem with files. To fix it, we have to delete the file, submit that change, then p4 add the file with the correct case and submit the second change. Once that's done, unix users who have sync'ed the incorrect-case file have to p4 sync, then physically delete the file (because p4 won't update the case) and then p4 sync -f the file.
Our server is on Windows, so that might make a difference.
I guess it treats files and folders the same.
For files:
It depends (on whether you have a Windows or Unix server). We have this problem with our Windows perforce server (which versions our Java code), where very occasionally someone will check in a file with a case problem (this then causes compile errors because it's Java). The only way to fix this is to obliterate the file and resubmit it with the correct case.
I think you should remove the Perforce Cache, so that your modification can be shown.
You can rename with ABC rename to abc_TMP, then abc_TMP rename to abc, then clear cache.
Setps to clear cache:
Open windows user home folder (on windows7 ==> C:\Users\)
Locate the folder called ".p4qt"
Rename the folder to "old.p4qt"
Launch Perforce, now everything works!
NOTE: these steps will rest your default setting.
The question is over 3 years old, but I ran into an issue like this while doing a Subversion import into Perforce and figured the info I got could be useful to some. It's similar to the obliterate method, but helps you retain history. You use the duplicate command that may not have been available back then to retain the history. The process basically being:
Duplicate to temporary location.
Obliterate the location you just duplicated.
Duplicate from the temporary location to the renamed case location.
Obliterate the temporary location.
Through this you retain the history of file changes, but get them all in the new path as well. Unfortunately there will be no history of the path case change, but that seems to be unavoidable. Similar to other methods mentioned here, users will need to either manually rename the directories in their workspace or delete and re-sync to get the new path name.
Also, P4V caches the paths it shows in the tree so after doing this it may still show up as the old name. a p4 dirs command however will show the new case.