Team Development, Remote Instances - empty update sets when moving to production

[kevinanderson]

I have a problem that   I hope someone on here can understand what we are doing wrong to cause this anomaly:

We previously used manual xml export / import to migrate all update sets between instances.   Now that we have upgraded to fuji, we are attempting to use the "Remote Instance" feature to migrate completed update sets between DEV->QA->PROD.   In the last few deployments, we have observed an issue where a few of the many update sets we PULL from QA to PROD show up int the preview in production as empty with no change items.   The update sets when observed in QA and DEV, contain all the changes.

This problem is very intermittent.   It seems to effect some developers more than others.   I myself had not had this problem with any of the update sets I have created in DEV, then pulled and committed to QA, and then pulled and committed to Prod.  

An example update sets as observed in QA from the last deployment

The same update sets after being pulled to prod:

Note: there is duplication in the update set here b/c the developer had to resort to manual export import after observing the blank update set (source = QA) to get a proper update set into prod during the deployment

Here is the manually imported update set

The steps we are following to perform this migration between systems:

Instructions on using Team Development to migrate update sets:

(All Dev work should be completed on the DEV instance now, stop using LAB2 as it will go away soon)

1. 1. Search for "team"
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2. 2. Click "Remote Instances"
3. 3. Click the instance you want to import from (if in QA, pull from DEV)
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4. 4. Click "retrieve completed update sets"
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5. 5. Allow the process to complete   (sometimes I have to do it twice - if the red bar error occurs)
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6. 6. Search for your update set from the "related link section" at the bottom of the Remote Instance page
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7. 7. Click the update set to apply
8. 8. Preview the update set
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9. 9. Commit your update set
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[Lane Roberts]

Hi Kevin,

I placed an update in the incident that you have with me regarding this issue that should provide an explanation for the experience you were having with getting blank update sets on XML import, please review that and let me know if you need further assistance on this issue.

But to recap for anyone that might read this thread: The Team Development functionality for 'Remote Instances' and the System Update Sets functionality for 'Update Sources' is the same functionality that has always been available (and been the preferred method) for retrieving update sets from a remote instance to a local one.

Beyond that, there are two likely scenarios that would explain the experience your users have been seeing when importing update sets via XML export/import:

1. The user is exporting the update set to XML by right-clicking on the header within the update set record and choosing 'Export to XML'. Performing this option instead of utilizing the 'Export to XML' UI Action within the update set record will always yield an empty update set upon import to your local instance.
2. There is a known problem that has a current fix target within Geneva whereby the update set retrieve can silently fail upon XML insert.

Hopefully the above information clears up any confusion on the matter, but if you have any additional questions, feel free to reach back out to me.

Cheers,

- Lane Roberts

[kevinanderson]

Lane,

Can you provide any details to help us work around the known bug?   Our team has grown considerably over the summer, and we were exclusively using manual export/import to migrate import sets.   It makes it difficult to convince the team to use remote instance import on production night if we have this chance of empty update sets occurring, which we have experienced on the last 2 production deployments in Auguest. Please advise.

Thanks!

[kevinanderson · Accepted solution]

root cause: user on QA instance that was pulling to PROD was missing "ADMIN" role.