1.0.0.2745 - Excessive build start delays

Hi,

We have for some time noticed that on occasion there are excessive delays in starting a build. For example right now I have no running builds and one initializing.

 The initializing one has been in stage "[Repository Monitor] Waiting for repository 'Suite' to be checked." for 44 minutes. Previous build using the same SVN repository was completed approx ten minutes before starting so there has not been much changes introduced since, so waiting for Continua to start a build for an hour is excessive.

Hi Ollie,

Yes, 44 minutes does seem excessive. We’ll do some additional testing in this area. Can you provide some information on your repository settings, particularly the Externals and Branches settings? Does your repository have a large number of branches and/or externals? It would also be useful if you could enable debug logging, although I understand if this is only happening on occasion it may be difficult to log the event happening?

Hi,

The repository in question is the same you helped us to config during the beta period. I’ve updated the installation to 1.0.0.2770 but it made no difference as expected.

The issue appears to be that the repository is possibly stuck at “Updating Cache” stage. I’m not really able to determine if it’s actually doing something.

Externals are set to Checkout and Branches settings are as follows:
Branches Path: /branches/
Branch Pattern: /(201[2-9].[1-9]|HOTFIXES/201[2-9].[1-9][^/]+)/

The repository directory on the server is approx 5 GB of which 1 GB is in the .hg -directory and 3,5 GB in the .svn directory.

For reference normal working copy of a branch in that SVN repository is approx 1,4 GB of which 800 MB is in the .svn directory.

Hi Olli,

We've been running through the way we are handling externals when switching SVN branches and have found a number of areas where the code can be optimised. We've been testing these improvements on a large test repository linked to a couple of couple externals and the speed of updating the cache has improved substantially. 

We need to do some further testing to ensure that we are not losing anything, but hope to get an update out in the next couple of days.


Hi Ollie,

We've uploaded a build 1.0.0.2785 with significant improvements to the externals support for Subversion. 

The speed increase will be more noticeable after the second new changeset.

Please let us know how this works out for your environment.

Hi 

This problem happens often with 1.0.0.2859 and Perforce repos as well. I’m sitting here right now waiting for 33 minutes
and the repo is ‘Updating cache’.

I know there were only 2 changes since the last time a build was run.

Thanks

Are there any Continua Event log entries?

Hey Vincent

Nothing in the logs - nothing in the win event log either…

I do have a theory which is why I asked [via support ticket] about renaming the host machine which I am about to embark upon.
Will let you know if a) the renaming worked [first time it didn’t] and b) if that fixes the problem.

I will need to create a new repo [P4 is pain] and then change a whole heap of stuff so it is going to take quite a long time to do.

I suspect this is a perforce workspace issue. Continua Creates a Client with the name Continua[repoid] - I beleive (I’m no perforce expert) that the clients are machine specific. In perforce, you should be able to delete the client, then continua will recreate it if needed.

Ok, in p4v, open the workspaces view, find the Continua[repoid] workspace and delete it. Then restart continua and that should have you up and running again.

Ha… great minds!

I just did that based on ‘another’ hunch.
Working fine now… P4 = voodoo

lol! glad to here you are up and running!