VersionControl.config is not valid

Continua CI Discussion
1

Hello, 

We’re using Continua v1.8.0.121 to deploy from TFS and it’s working pretty well, except we’ve found that every time the following file gets created, new changesets are no longer detected on deployments.  Deleting the file always fixes the issue immediately.

C:\Users\Continua\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4.0\Cache\VersionControl.config

The error in the log is:

A new event has been added to the event log: 

Repository 

Cannot get changes for repository TFS_JxCloud_DevBugLine: Running C:\Program Files\VSoft Technologies\ContinuaCI\Server\TFS\Continua.Modules.Builds.TeamFoundation.exe with arguments "https://junxure.visualstudio.com/DefaultCollection/ $/JxCloud / 10501 True 2012 True False billderr ******** "/DevBugLine"" failed with return code 2 and error output: "Error communicating with TFS server, please check all fields and try again. Error details: [ERROR] Failed to access Version Control Service of https://junxure.visualstudio.com/DefaultCollection/ : The cache file C:\Users\Continua\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\4.0\Cache\VersionControl.config is not valid and cannot be loaded.
[ERROR] Please correct or delete the file.

The issue has been ongoing for months over several versions of Continua.  Has anyone seen this before?

Thanks,
Jeff

2
 
Hi Jeff,
 
This is an issue with TFS rather than Continua CI.
 
Apparently the VersionControl.config, which is used as part of TFS caching, can become corrupt when the hard disk runs out of space. The recommended solution is just to delete or rename the file as you have done.
 
We also recommend that you set up low disk space alerts in the scheduled task manager and set up Continua CI cleanup policies to ensure that files are cleaned up regularly.
3

Thank you for the reply.

This is an ongoing issue. The original issue was likely caused by low disk space, but that has not been the case for a while. We’ve deleted the VersionControl.config file (several times), and I’ve cleaned out all of the related files per recommendations found online, but the problem remains when deploying via Continua. Every time that file is created (0 bytes) the deployment fails to pick up all changesets. Deleting the file always resolves the issue immediately.

Users have lost faith in the Continua deployment picking up all changesets consistently and are urging me to abandon the product and start over with something else.

Please let me know if you can assist.

Thanks,
Jeff

4

Hi Jeff

I understand your frustration, however rather than looking at other CI servers (which have the same problem, google the error) you should be looking at either replacing or updating TFS to a newer version (although I have seen this error reported agains 2013 I haven’t seen any for 2015 yet).