CVS and EA: Package control slow / "EA freeze"

[Gehaschu]

Hello together,

I got some problems using CSV and EA.
First of all short description of the configuration of our systems:

The System Configuration:
I am evaluating using EA and CVS for version control for design and documentation diagrams.
I have set up a new CVS project on our CVS server expecially for EA usage. The OS of the CVS server is Linux with most of the features of some SuSE distribution (I cannot give more information about that because this server is administrated by another department and I am not really involved into all the details).
The client system on which EA runs is a Windows XP OS.We use TortoiseCVS as CVS client which works pretty well with our other projects.
The protocol used to connect to the CVS server is ext:
I tested the new project by checking out a EA diagram the direct way in the explorer of Win XP and this works fine.
The next thing I have done was to set up a package for version control as described in some of the flash tutorials on this website (which are great by the way). This worked just fine, but when trying to use that package I got this really annoying problem:

The Issue:

• I do a right click on a version controlled package to open the context menu
• Each time I select the "Package control" entry in the menu, the EA user interface is freezing for at least one minute or so before I actually can select another item on the next menu hierarchy level

Any ideas what might be the reason for that ?
I really would like to use EA and CVS for managing the progress of our design and documentation documents but if I cannot get rid of this "EA freeze" it is just not usable in a professional production environment.

I am looking forward to any answer on that matter.
Thanks !

[HowardB]

Hello Gehaschu,

There are a couple of things that might result in the behaviour you describe.

When you try to open the "Package Control" context menu for a version controlled package, EA must first retrieve the VC status of the associated package file before it displays the menu, so that it can correctly enable and disable the menu items, according to the check-out status of the package.  (Someone else might have checked-out the package since your last status query.)

If you have a slow connection to your CVS server, then it may take a long before the menu can be displayed.  (However, one minute does seem to be quite excessive...)

The second point is that your CVS environment must be set up such that you can issue commands to CVS (at a command line prompt) without ever being prompted for user input, such as username or password.  ( I know this can be done with :pserver: and :ssh: protocols, but I'm not sure about the :ext: protocol. )  While CVS is waiting for user input, it will not return control to EA.

The EA User Guide topic "CVS with Remote Repositories" has an example of how to verify that your CVS set up is suitable for EA.


If this information does not explain or help to resolve your issue, please submit a support request to [email protected].


regards,
Howard Britten.

[thomas.kilian]

I got some problems using CSV and EA.

I had almost the same problems with SVN. EA is very chatty not only with the DB but also with VC. In the end I decided to VC my packages outside EA. The only drawback is that EA does not allow stub saving for controlled packages without VC.

[Eve]

I had almost the same problems with SVN. EA is very chatty not only with the DB but also with VC. In the end I decided to VC my packages outside EA. The only drawback is that EA does not allow stub saving for controlled packages without VC.

Just out of curiosity, when did you last try?  There was some optimizations for version 7.1, especially for SVN which had some problems loading over a slow connection.

[Gehaschu]

Hello together,
first of all thank you very much for your replies.
@Simon M: My last try was just recently, we use EA Professional Edition 7.0.817.
@abcde: That's exactly what I will gonna do if I don't get rid of the "wait for the menu to be displayed" problem.
@HowardB: From a SW deleoper point of view I understand the issue that EA first must query CVS for the package to obtain in order to enable / disable the correct options in the menu. On the other hand it is quite bad for using EA for example if someone just wants to browse the menu. It is pretty annoying if you click outside of the menu once it is displayed causing the menu to immediately disappear again forcing you to wait another minute or so for the menu to open.
I already checked out the user guide for using CVS / Remote repositories but I'll give it another try.
So far I am the only user who uses the repository because I just set up a test project in order to evaluate the possibilities of EA for version control.
We connect to our CVS server using a pretty fast intranet broadband connection, so I guess the network is not the bottleneck of the whole matter.
Any further ideas what might be the reason for the extremly long waiting times ?
Thanks...!

[Geert Bellekens]

I don't know if anyone already submitted the request, but it would be a great improvement if there would be an option: "disable chatting with VC server when opening package context menu"
With this option EA could only start communicating with the VC server if one of the vc options was chosen.
I'm fully aware that the consequence would be that sometimes the chosen option would result in a failure message like "sorry no can do, package is already checked out by <username>", but i would be happy to live with that minor discomfort as opposed to waiting a few seconds now each time I right click on a controlled package.

[thomas.kilian]

Just out of curiosity, when did you last try?  There was some optimizations for version 7.1, especially for SVN which had some problems loading over a slow connection.

Yes Simon, I know. We had been in discussion AFAIR. There was indeed a bit of optimization but it did not really help in my case though. I'm simply living in hope that stub saving will be possible for non VCed packages somewhen. Currently no time for experiments...

[thomas.kilian]

I don't know if anyone already submitted the request, but it would be a great improvement if there would be an option: "disable chatting with VC server when opening package context menu"
With this option EA could only start communicating with the VC server if one of the vc options was chosen.
I'm fully aware that the consequence would be that sometimes the chosen option would result in a failure message like "sorry no can do, package is already checked out by <username>", but i would be happy to live with that minor discomfort as opposed to waiting a few seconds now each time I right click on a controlled package.

That could probably help - and there was no request so far. Feel free to start.

[Eve]

Yes Simon, I know. We had been in discussion AFAIR. There was indeed a bit of optimization but it did not really help in my case though. I'm simply living in hope that stub saving will be possible for non VCed packages somewhen. Currently no time for experiments...

That's fine.  Just wanted to check.

[mrf]

@Simon M: My last try was just recently, we use EA Professional Edition 7.0.817.
 

I think the optimisations Simon was talking about went in during build 825 - 827, it'd be well worth downloading the latest installer (829) and seeing how that performs.

[Gehaschu]

@mrf
Thank you for that hint, I think I gonna give it a try and download and install the latest build.

[Gehaschu]

@all
So now I am gonna answer my last post: I downloaded the latest build - it says "Program version: 7.1.829" in the "Help->About EA" dialog - and tried using version controlled packages again to see if the context menu still takes a pretty long time to open. I clicked on the "Package Control" menu item in the context menu of a version controlled package and started my stop-watch to measure the time exactly->it took about 35 seconds before the next hierarchy level of the context menu opened.

I have the task to propose it to the other team members to use EA for version control - or some similar tool - for versioning our design documents. I guess they will be reluctant to use EA if they will be wasting time in their daily workflow because of such an issue in EA.
So I think for now I stick with the intermediate solution of using CVS for version control only and synchronize the EA files by using the Master / Replica approach.
If there are any updates on that issue don't hesitate to post...
Thanks...

[thomas.kilian]

I can confirm this - so still I'm working with VC outside EA.