Troubleshooting VSS Converter

This section contains troubleshooting information about the common problems you may experience when migrating to Team Foundation version control from Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 using the VSS Converter.

In This Section

Disk Space Limitations

Wrong Version of Ssapi.dll is Registered

The File and Folder Versions are Not Migrated Because of VSS Corruption and IVSS Problems

VSS Converter Does Not Support All Visual SourceSafe Scenarios

Team Foundation Data Tier Runs Out of Disk Space During Migration

VSS Converter is Stopped

Password of the User Running VSS Converter has Expired

Error Messages on Opening Migrated Solution Files

Disk Space Limitations

If the computer on which the VSS Converter is running has, or is about to run out of disk space, the following error is displayed:

VSS Error: Disk out of space

Solution

• During migration, the VSS Converter downloads the files to a local folder on the system drive and then uploads them to Team Foundation. Additionally, VSS Converter requires disk space to store a log file, report file, and meta-data in SQL Express.

• If you notice the disk space low, you can stop the migration by pressing Ctrl-C. You can restart migration from the point it stopped by using incremental migration feature. However, you must create additional disk space on the system drive before re-starting the migration.

• If there is no available disk space, you will notice that zero size files are migrated. In this case you must stop the migration by pressing Ctrl+C and begin the migration again.

• We recommend that you maintain 10GB of available disk space on the drive on which you are running migration.

Wrong Version of Ssapi.dll is Registered

If the wrong version of ssapi.dll is registered, VSS Converter crashes with the following error:

Unable to cast COM object of type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.SourceSafe.Interop.VSSDatabaseClass' to interface type 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.SourceSafe.Interop.IVSSDatabase'. This operation failed because the QueryInterface call on the COM component for the interface with IID '{2A0DE0EE-2E9F-11D0-9236-00AA00A1EB95}' failed with HRESULT: 0x80004002 (No such interface supported (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004002 (E_NOINTERFACE))). Unhandled exception caught.

Additionally, VSS Converter displays either the "VSS Converter requires Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 or above" or the "Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 not installed" error message, even though Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 is already installed.

Solution

VSS Converter requires Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005 or above to be installed on the computer on which you are performing migration. You may also experience this problem if in addition to Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005, you have installed an older version of Visual SourceSafe. This problem occurs when the older version of ssapi.dll is registered instead of the ssapi.dll that was included with Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005. To solve this problem, uninstall the older version of Visual SourceSafe and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005, and reinstall only Microsoft Visual SourceSafe 2005.

The File and Folder Versions are Not Migrated Because of VSS Corruption and IVSS Problems

If the file and folder versions are not migrated because of Visual SourceSafe corruption and IVSS problems, you may see many errors and data loss warnings in report files. This is because one or both of the following errors have occurred:

• Tip versions in Visual SourceSafe do not match with tip version in Team Foundation.

• The versions of files and folders associated with a label in Visual SourceSafe do not exactly match with the versions of files and folders in Team Foundation.

Solution

• Visual SourceSafe is prone to corruption after it is used for a long time. This corruption may cause VSS Converter not to be able to migrate some versions of files and folders. VSS Converter uses IVSS API to access Visual SourceSafe database, whereas Visual SourceSafe UI and command line does not use IVSS. In few cases, you may be able to retrieve Visual SourceSafe versions through UI or command line, but you cannot retrieve them through IVSS. The migration of such file and folder versions may fail.

• After a successful migration, you should compare the latest versions of files and folders in Visual SourceSafe with the latest versions of the migrated files and folders in Team Foundation version control using any file comparison utility such as the WinDiff tool. If you find differences between the file and folder versions, manually migrate the latest version.

  Note

  After migration, there is no method to match version of files and folders associated with a label in Visual SourceSafe to the version of files and folders in Team Foundation version control.

VSS Converter Does Not Support All Visual SourceSafe Scenarios

VSS Converter does not support all scenarios or action sequences in Visual SourceSafe. If you have mismatched tips or labels, you may see many errors or possibly none in the report files. On examining the migrated files and folders, you may see any one of the following conditions:

• The tip versions in Visual SourceSafe do not match with latest version in Team Foundation version control.

• The versions of files and folders associated with a label in Visual SourceSafe do not exactly match with the versions of files and folders in Team Foundation version control.

• Files and folders are migrated with incorrect names.

Some of the Visual SourceSafe scenarios not supported by VSS Converter are:

• File or folder is renamed and moved multiple times.

• The archived folder is restored to another folder that is in same or different Visual SourceSafe database.

• Time zone issues may cause problems. VSS Converter fixes some of the possible time zone problems. However, it may not fix all of the problems. For more information about time zone issues, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article "BUG: Using SourceSafe in Multiple Time Zones" (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=59976).

Solution

After a successful migration, you should compare the latest versions of files and folders in Visual SourceSafe with the latest versions of the migrated files and folders in Team Foundation version control using any file comparison utility such as the WinDiff tool. If you find differences between the file or folder versions, you should manually migrate the latest version.

Team Foundation Data Tier Runs Out of Disk Space During Migration

If the Team Foundation data tier runs out of disk space during migration, the following errors are repeatedly displayed on the console:

• Unable to migrate to Team Foundation Error: SQL error xxxx disk out of space.

• Team Foundation is not responding. Retrying……

• Unable to migrate to Team Foundation Error: SQL error xxxx Transaction Log full. TF30042: The database is full. Contact your Team Foundation Server administrator.

Solution

The source control data is stored on data tier of Team Foundation. Because VSS Converter migrates history of months or years in span of hours or days, the data tier sometimes runs out of disk space.

• You can restart migration from the point it stopped by using the incremental migration feature. For more information, see How to: Incrementally Migrate to Team Foundation. However, you must create additional disk space on the data tier before you start the migration again.

• If the transaction log is full; you must clear it by deleting its contents.

  Important Note:
  Backup the transaction log before you clear it.

VSS Converter is Stopped

The VSS Converter might be stopped because of a crash or because the computer on which VSS converter is running is restarted due to power failure, security update, or other reason.

Solution

You can restart migration from the point it stopped by using the incremental migration feature. For more information, see How to: Incrementally Migrate to Team Foundation. However, you must examine if the VSS Converter failed is a transient or persistent problem. If it is a persisting problem then you must manually fix the history of the element that is causing the failure in Visual SourceSafe.

Password of the User Running VSS Converter has Expired

If the user password has expired, the message "Team Foundation is not responding. Retrying……".* is displayed repeatedly. Additionally, the log file lists SoapException for unauthorized access or permission denied errors.

Solution

If the password of the user identity with which VSS Converter is running is expired, stop the migration by pressing Ctrl+C. Log off and log back in with a new password. You can restart migration from the point it stopped by using the incremental migration feature. For more information, see How to: Incrementally Migrate to Team Foundation.

Error Messages on Opening Migrated Solution Files

If the source control binding of migrated files has not been updated, an error message is displayed when a user tries to open a solution file that is bound to the Visual SourceSafe database.

Solution

VSS Converter does not change the source control binding information in the solution file. Therefore the solution file is still bound to Visual SourceSafe from Team Foundation.

To correct this, you must migrate the source control binding from Visual SourceSafe to Team Foundation version control. For more information, see How to: Migrate Source Control Bindings from Visual SourceSafe.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough: Migrating from Visual SourceSafe to Team Foundation

Concepts

Migrating from Visual SourceSafe