Re: git-svn intermittent issues with absent_file

Am 27.08.2009, 21:19 Uhr, schrieb Eric Wong [off-list ref]:

Matthias Andree [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

Greetings,

we seem to have issues with checking out files from an SVN server via
https://. The problem is hard to reproduce, and shows as "absent_file"
warnings, i. e. files that are in the SVN checkout don't make it to the
Git checkin.

Perhaps this rings a bell with someone or there are similar reports that
relate to our issues...

Hi Matthias,

I don't recall any issues with the "absent_file" callback ever being
reported to me.  I don't think I've ever touched a repo that triggered
it, either...

Hi Eric,

thank you for the prompt reply.

quoted

## ISSUE ## Once in a while, a git-svn clone or rebase fails with files
missing from commits, as mentioned above. We haven't been able to figure
out under what circumstances this happens. If we try to reproduce this
(i. e. kill the directory completely and re-run the git svn clone),
another revision (for instance 170) might show this, or the clone may
succeed.
  This was observed with Git 1.6.0.4 under Ubuntu Linux Jaunty Jackalope
(9.04) and on a different computer with Git 1.6.4.1.196.g31f0b (from the
master branch) under a fully updated Cygwin 1.5.

I assume this happens with the latest git under Ubuntu Linux, too; but
can you give that a try just in case?

The latest git was on Cygwin, but we'll see to trying it on Linux.

There have been a few odd bugs fixed since 1.6.0.4, but nothing rings a
bell here.  This doesn't seem to be a Cygwin/Win32-related issue, but
I'd like to minimize the number of variables since I can't support
Cygwin/Win32 directly.

The other question is how many arcane APR or Subversion binding issues we
hit here. Subversion 1.6 + bindings surely is rather picky on Cygwin 1.5,
as discussed earlier on this list.

quoted

Questions:

1. What causes these absent_file issues? How can we assist with  
debugging
this?

Permissions would be my first (and only) guess as I have no experience
with this condition...

Hm. In that case: who writes the file that goes missing, and why isn't the
error logged then? Is there a way to have the SVN bindings or the
interfacing code in Git-SVN log file creation/write errors with decoded
errno? That might help a big deal already.

Are you using anything weird in ~/.subversion/config by any chance?

Not to my knowledge.

And you're sure you're using the same user/account in all cases?

Yes indeed. All under the same account.

Are the files you're hitting absent_file on unusually large and
hitting some limit on the server side?

The files aren't, the whole changeset might. We haven't yet observed this
on small (as in one .tex file) commits.

quoted

2. What does "Delta source ended unexpectedly" mean? (the line number is
bogus, it's just the finish_report call)

Sometimes the server can just shut down/drop connections.  Do you have
access to the server logs?  How many simultaneous connections can
it accept?  Which version of the Subversion server is running?

The server doesn't permit user logins, so we need to ask the support
staff. Answer times are unpredictable.

How reliable is your network connection to the server?
Anything weird with the network configuration?  Mismatched MTU, odd
firewall rules, non-standard TCP stack configuration, VPN, proxies...

Uncritical. Company network, "direct connection" (through switches).

quoted

3. Is this or a similar issue known? Is this an issue with the SVN
server, the SVN bindings, or the git svn adaptor?

The "Incomplete data: Delta source ended unexpectedly" happens
from time to time on a few odd servers, but I've never found it
reproducible and retrying "git svn fetch" always fixes it.
This is more than likely the fault of the network or server.

Seems plausible, but...

The "absent_file" issue I've never seen...

...in such a case, some part of the overall system (I'm not saying it's  
git-svn though) must ignore an error and continue.

quoted

We're happy to test patches.

Cool.  I don't have any ideas for patches right now, but does this
problem happen with other SVN clients?  Even svk/svm could be
worth a shot for testing...

I can try svk, but what's svm?

-- 
Matthias Andree