VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

Hello

We have a Visual SourceSafe 2005 server and four clients running Visual 
Studio 2005. They interface to the server using the plug-in to SourceSafe, 
but they also have Visual SourceSafe Client 6.0 installed. Both clients and 
server are running Windows XP Professional SP2.

The database size is 2.33GB.

Lately, a terrible phenomenon started which prevents our programmers from 
working:
Whenever they perform Check In, Check Out or Get Latest their client freezes 
for between 30 seconds to over 10 minutes.

We performed the following operations to counteract the problem:
1. We reinstalled the operating system to some of the programmers
2. We purchased a new server and moved the DB to it
3. We purchased new computers for the programmers we installed new systems for
4. We replaced the whole networking infrastructure to brand new Nortel 
switches

Surprisingly, none of the above helped the situation at all.

We ran a network sniffing application (Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1) on one 
of the clients and then on the server and found a very interesting thing:
The client freezes right after it sends a TCP SMB packet called "Rename 
Request". It will stay frozen until it receives a TCP SMB reply from the 
server called "Rename Response". As long as the client does not receive the 
"Rename Response" packet from the server it will stay frozen, and that can be 
between 30 seconds to well over 10 minutes (at which point we simply kill the 
client).

As I said, this happens with fresh Windows installations and brand new 
hardware. 
This happens also when only one client connects to the server.

During the time the client is frozen the server reacts to every other 
service it provides, and at incredible speed too. So this means that the 
hardware as well as the network are perfect.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Erez.

date: Tue, 20 May 2008 01:06:00 -0700 author: ECB

Re: VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

"ECB"  wrote in message 
news:0E96DD05-C336-4F71-9A77-4B8E9FA7BA73@microsoft.com...
> Hello
>
> We have a Visual SourceSafe 2005 server and four clients running Visual
> Studio 2005. They interface to the server using the plug-in to SourceSafe,
> but they also have Visual SourceSafe Client 6.0 installed. Both clients 
> and
> server are running Windows XP Professional SP2.
>
> The database size is 2.33GB.
>
> Lately, a terrible phenomenon started which prevents our programmers from
> working:
> Whenever they perform Check In, Check Out or Get Latest their client 
> freezes
> for between 30 seconds to over 10 minutes.
>
> We performed the following operations to counteract the problem:
> 1. We reinstalled the operating system to some of the programmers
> 2. We purchased a new server and moved the DB to it
> 3. We purchased new computers for the programmers we installed new systems 
> for
> 4. We replaced the whole networking infrastructure to brand new Nortel
> switches
>
> Surprisingly, none of the above helped the situation at all.
>


Not too surprisingly.  A lot of money was spent shooting in the dark without 
knowing the root cause.


> We ran a network sniffing application (Microsoft Network Monitor 3.1) on 
> one
> of the clients and then on the server and found a very interesting thing:
> The client freezes right after it sends a TCP SMB packet called "Rename
> Request". It will stay frozen until it receives a TCP SMB reply from the
> server called "Rename Response". As long as the client does not receive 
> the
> "Rename Response" packet from the server it will stay frozen, and that can 
> be
> between 30 seconds to well over 10 minutes (at which point we simply kill 
> the
> client).
>
> As I said, this happens with fresh Windows installations and brand new
> hardware.
> This happens also when only one client connects to the server.
>
> During the time the client is frozen the server reacts to every other
> service it provides, and at incredible speed too. So this means that the
> hardware as well as the network are perfect.
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated.


Has the database ever been analyzed and repaired?  See the ANALYZE utlitity 
in the VSS help.

--Mark

date: Tue, 20 May 2008 07:45:56 -0700 author: Mark Tolonen

Re: VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

"Mark Tolonen" wrote:

> Not too surprisingly.  A lot of money was spent shooting in the dark without 
> knowing the root cause.

You're absolutely right. It is shooting in the dark, and that's what pisses 
me off in this annoying story. Moreover, no one in our business is a VSS 
expert by any means.

The network was scheduled for an upgrade anyway. By the way, the problem 
started right after the network upgrade. We checked the network for a few 
days and it is absolutely flawless. If packets were to run any faster we 
would start going back in time.  

> Has the database ever been analyzed and repaired?  See the ANALYZE utlitity 
> in the VSS help.
> 
> --Mark

The database is analyzed and repaired on a weekly basis by one of the 
programmers.

Thanks,
Erez.

date: Wed, 21 May 2008 00:08:02 -0700 author: ECB

Re: VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

Has anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks again.

date: Sun, 25 May 2008 12:18:00 -0700 author: ECB

RE: VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

I have an very simmilar experience. Sometimes the Visual Studio and 
SourceSafe client frezes for up to 10 minutes. We have somewhat the same 
configuration as described by ECB. And we have the same experience with the 
server responding very well on other request.

This weekend I have tried to run the Analyze utility on the VSS database 
which is on a network fileshare. When I run the Analyse using the -F 
parameter and combines it with the -D or -C parameter, the process goes with 
normal speed for a while. But then it slows down and becomes terrible slow. I 
have used the filemon utility to log what happens. It seem like analyze is 
accessing a file every 10 minutes. 

This happend for a approximately a week ago. We have used the same VSS setup 
for years, and it suddenly slows down like this.

My post does not help you very much I'm afraid, but you are not alone having 
the problem. :-/

date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 14:59:00 -0700 author: KEM

RE: VSS 2005 Clients Freeze

Hello,

It's a problem of Trend Micro Office Scan 7, when it was updated the last 
april 23.

This link comment the solution: 

http://www.cmcrossroads.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,593/func,view/catid,38/id,90258/ 



"KEM" wrote:

> I have an very simmilar experience. Sometimes the Visual Studio and 
> SourceSafe client frezes for up to 10 minutes. We have somewhat the same 
> configuration as described by ECB. And we have the same experience with the 
> server responding very well on other request.
> 
> This weekend I have tried to run the Analyze utility on the VSS database 
> which is on a network fileshare. When I run the Analyse using the -F 
> parameter and combines it with the -D or -C parameter, the process goes with 
> normal speed for a while. But then it slows down and becomes terrible slow. I 
> have used the filemon utility to log what happens. It seem like analyze is 
> accessing a file every 10 minutes. 
> 
> This happend for a approximately a week ago. We have used the same VSS setup 
> for years, and it suddenly slows down like this.
> 
> My post does not help you very much I'm afraid, but you are not alone having 
> the problem. :-/

date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:59:00 -0700 author: Peter