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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Finance | Project Operations, Human Resources, ... / Renamed branches in Az...
Finance | Project Operations, Human Resources, ...
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Renamed branches in Azure Dev Ops webpage, and now change set history is not showing.

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Posted on by jt1024 197

Hello all,

In the project I have inherited, there was a lot of old branches from previous versions of AX and I wanted to clean it up.  I found the rename action in Azure Dev Ops on the branch name.  I used this to clean up the naming. This has created two problems:

1: The changesets I had applied in my main branch are no longer showing up in the history of that branch.

2: There's an extra folder showing up under Trunk in the project, it has the name of one of the old branches that has since been renamed.

I'm hoping this is another case of learning curve missed commands and I hope it is an easy fix.

Details on item 1: Here's the changesets as viewed in the Azure DevOps web page:

ChangeSetsInAzureDevOps.png

History missing in Main now:

MainBranchHistoryMissing.png

I renamed Dev-10 to Main, and I'm expecting that all the latest code that was in Dev-10 is now in the branch called Main.  But now I'm not certain how to verify that given what I'm seeing as outlined here.

Any ideas?

Details on item 2:

ExtraLegacyBranchOnBuildVM.png

See the folder here called Dev-10 marked with a + new files added indicator.

How do I remove these permanently?

Post Script investigation. I've found some related links:

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/b32b140e-5b6a-4a43-a58d-fd7069c9cc6a/renaming-branches-without-loosing-history?forum=tfsgeneral

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27491584/how-can-i-fix-tfs-history-after-rename

I have the same question (0)
  • Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,965 Most Valuable Professional on at

    This is not an ideal forum, because your question is purely about Azure DevOps / TFTC, not D36FO. Anyway...

    The + sigh means that you have pending changes adding Dev-10 folder. You can undo pending changes and delete the folder.

    To verify the contents of the Main branch, look at files there. If you wish, you can create a separate workspace with code from Dev-10 (an older version of your repository) and compare files in Main and Dev-10 on disk.

    Regarding history, you links confirm that history isn't shown for renamed branches.

  • jt1024 Profile Picture
    jt1024 197 on at

    Hello Martin,

    Thank-you very kindly for your time in replying in this forum.  (Would this URL be a better forum to use: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/tags/133/azure )

    For the Dev-10+ folder (shown at the same level as a branch) For the record and benefit of future readers..

    I did undo pending changes, and it just disappeared. But when I restart Visual Studio it comes back. 

    So I tried undoing all changes, closing visual studio, and then deleting the offending folders from k:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory\... manually.  But the OS says the folder was in use... but then I remembered to stop the related processes (Management Reporter 2012 Process, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Unified Operations, and World Wide Web Publishing Service) then I was able to delete the related \bin folders from my CCHSureTax ISV add in.

    To verify the contents of my Main branch, you suggested ho create a separate workspace with code from the Dev-10 (an older version of your repository) and compare files in Main and Dev-10 on disk.  But ... how would I see the Dev-10 files? I have no branch with that name now.  Plus the Azure VM cloud hosted environment that is mapped to the main branch only has the one mapping, there's not a second set of files on disk. 

    I figure I must be missing some knowledge which would let me follow your suggestion.  Could you expand on what you suggested?

    Thanks again Martin

  • jt1024 Profile Picture
    jt1024 197 on at

    Follow up on this.  I renamed my Main back to Dev-10.

    Now the History I expect is properly visible.

    Perhaps the ‘history’ purely looks at the name of the branch, and the rename operation doesn’t take the history into account when doing the renames, thus breaking all the connections.

    Curious as to your comments on this as well Martin.

    Thanks so much again.

  • Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,965 Most Valuable Professional on at

    You said you didn't have Dev-10 branch anymore, but you have a version control system, therefore you can take an older version of your repository, when the branch still existed.

    The solution for "there's not a second set of files on disk" is creating it. Create an extra workspace, map the other branch to another folder and let Visual Studio download the files.

  • jt1024 Profile Picture
    jt1024 197 on at

    Hello Martin,

    I talked with MS support. They showed me the visual studio option 'Show deleted items in the Source Control Explorer' when using Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.  This is found under Source-Control, Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.  Our repos are on Azure DevOps on visualstudio.com

    That way I could see the old branches that were deleted automatically as part of the branch rename operation.

    When you say "but you have a version control system, therefore you can take an older version of your repository, when the branch still existed." Does that apply to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server?  This appears to be the relevant MS Learn page for that: learn.microsoft.com/.../view-manage-past-versions

    What do you think?

  • Verified answer
    Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,965 Most Valuable Professional on at

    Of course it applies. A version control system would be useless if you couldn't work with previous versions of your files.

    'Show deleted items in the Source Control Explorer' doesn't allow you to do what I suggested - comparing folders on disk. Note that I don't see a reason for doing it; I just answered your question.

  • jt1024 Profile Picture
    jt1024 197 on at

    Hello Martin,

    Sorry I think maybe I came across wrong. I didn't mean to imply that you had made an incorrect suggestion.

    The training I have done with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server using Team Foundation Version Control (so many catch phrases and acronyms..) has not taught me how to compare.  Digging a little deeper I found the command you mean.

    learn.microsoft.com/.../compare-files

    - Jim

  • Martin Dráb Profile Picture
    Martin Dráb 237,965 Most Valuable Professional on at

    There is a tool in Azure DevOps to compare folders, but when you have two folders on disk and you want to compare them, it's nothing specific to Azure DevOps anymore. You could use any tool that can work with folders and files, such as FreeFileSync.

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