Mercurial with Git Subrepository

I recently had some problems creating a Git sub-repository inside my Mercurial main repository using the guide I found here!

Problem

All is well and good up to that point, however when committing the added .hgsub file things started to head south.

From the commandline (cmd) I would get an error:

abort: The system cannot find the file specified

While from TortoiseHg I would not get an error. However, the expected .hgsubstate file did not get created, and thus the repository has in effect no valid sub-repositories if you try to clone it!

Workaround

The workaround is to do the commit of the .hgsub file from the GitBash shell instead of the regular shell or TortoiseHg, since then the .hgsubstate file will be generated. Using the GitBash shell is also mandatory for committing any change to the .hgsub file, or .hgsubstate file, as well as the initial clone of the repository.

Some googling around indicate that the issue is due to either Mercurial or TortoiseHg trying to execute the "git.exe" command (as opposed to just "git") and that this alias does not exist in the regular shell. I have not verified this, so YMMV!

Misc

Potentially relevant software that is installed on the computer:

• Windows 7 x64
• TortoiseHg (2.3.1)
• Mercurial (2.1.1)
• Git (1.7.6)
• Python (2.6.6)

Both the "git" and "hg" commands were included in the PATH.

OpenVPN on Windows 7

I have always had a problem with OpenVPN on my Windows 7 (64 bit, pro edition) laptop. Installing would go just fine, but it was never able to connect to the VPN server, even though I checked on several other computers (even a Windows 7 one) that the settings were correct and working.

VirtualBox
As it turns out, OpenVPN and Oracle VirtualBox on the same computer just doesn't work. Uninstalling VirtualBox would make it possible to connect to my VPN server.

However, I then encountered another issue...

TUN/TAP Driver
If the VPN connection dropped, like due to an unstable wifi link, I could never get it to work after it had reconnected.

After rebooting it would work fine though, so after a bit of fiddling I came up with a workaround. Before reconnecting to the VPN server I have to disable and then re-enable the TUN/TAP network driver. Go figure...

Software Used

• Windows 7 64 bit professional edition
• VirtualBox 4.0.10 and 4.1.0
• OpenVPN 2.2.1

Free Tail GUI for Windows

Need a tail replacement on your Windows box? Look no further than Log Expert.

It has lots of powerful features such as:

• regular expression highlighting
• "columnizer" for well-defined log file formats
• opensource
• unicode support
• plugin support

...to name a few!

The homepage for the source-code: http://logexpert.codeplex.com/

SVN Trouble

After upgrading to the latest TortoiseSVN I started getting trouble committing changes back to the server with the following error:

'\' is not a working copy.

Downloading and testing the latest SVN command-line client yielded much the same results, only with some different messages.

After much googling I got a sneaky suspicion that there was an issue with my working-copy actually being on the root of a drive; in my case U:.

Checking everything out again, but this time at U:\wc worked perfectly.

Versions used:

• TortoiseSVN 1.6.10, Build 19898 - 64 Bit
• Subversion 1.6.12

To sum it up: Don't upgrade if you have your working copy at the root of a drive and it is currently working!

TeamCity Build Agent on Vista

I had some problems getting my Windows Vista PC to run as a build agent for TeamCity. According to the documentation it should be a pretty straight forward installation procedure. However, after I had installed my new agent never showed up on the server waiting to be authorized as expected.

Examining the logs in the build agents directory, I found an error message:

Unable to ping agent Andromeda. Please check firewall on agent machine

(Andromeda is the name of the Vista PC)

Well, I tried turning off the firewall altogether without any effect.
As it turns out this is a problem due to the fact that the PC has multiple IP addresses and the agent starts listening to the "wrong" one by default. You can override the IP address by specifying it during the install procedure, or later by changing the config file.
Adding this line to the config file solved my problems:

ownAddress=192.168.90.79

After a short while the build agent showed up on the server, and after authorizing it, everything worked as expected. Hujja for TeamCity!

Importing DLLs

Well, it was that time of the year again... to update the external dependencies for Item Assistant. Downloading and updaing SQLite always baffels me until I remember the hoops I went through (read: googling around for hours) last time I wanted to generate an import lib for use with the DLL.

So here is a link to the MS KB article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/131313
And a good article about more advanced DLL handling: http://qualapps.blogspot.com/2007/08/how-to-create-32-bit-import-libraries.html

Update:
This is the gist of it:

Open Visual Stuidio command prompt and run:
lib /DEF:sqlite3.def

This will genereate the appropriate .lib and .exp file.

Disappearing GUI Elements in Visual Studio 2005

For some reason after updating to Visual Studio 2005, the Exception Window no longer had the "Break on Unhandled Exception" column (or whatever it's called).

Here is a link explaining how to get it back.