Two problems. I can't add new users to the program, and, I tried archiving a database and received the message "File names.dat may be corrupt." The Help for this message said to run Analyze.exe alone (without extensions), then run Analyze.exe -F. I ran Analyze.exe and Analyze.exe -F and the results were no errors. It doesn't seem to see a problem with names.dat yet I still can't perform either of the above tasks. I have tried deleting names.dat and running Analyze.exe but this also did nothing to fix the problem.
Thanks in advance.
Steve
VSS 6.0d (SP6) names.dat may be corrupt
Charlie Calvert MSFT
Hi Steve,
Yes, the Help/About dialog in VSS Explorer should display the build number. The reason I'm asking is that between VSS 6.0 shipped in 1998 and latest VSS 6.0d shipped in 2003 there were 5 years of bugfixes that might affect your scenarios... If you use something older than VSS6.0d you can upgrade for free to it by installing VS6 SP6 (to use at least the updated version of analyze).
I need the exact error message, so I can identify in the code where it is displayed and look what causes it to be displayed.
I assume that "Master" is the friendly name of your VSS database (is this the database you have opened in SSAdmin when you try to add the user ). A message that tells Master database doesn't exist doesn't make too much sense to me - I suspect you already have it opened in SSAdmin. I don't think the impossiblity of adding new users have anything to do with names.dat. In general, errors to add users come from corruption in um.dat (likely you don't have this if you didn't see a specific message), or missing template files for ss.ini etc.
For names.dat, make sure you run the analyze by passing the correct path to the Master database (e.g. analyze.exe -f -c -d -v4 \\computer\vssshare\data). What arguments are you passing in to analyze It's hard to believe analyze will not even detect a corruption in names.dat. Is it possible you're passing in by mistake a path to a different database
Alin
Whoisit
That worked great - thanks so much Alin!
Does anyone know what causes this error Are we using files with names that are too long or something This happened a month or so ago and I ran the old build's analyze and that worked until the other day when I had to install the newest service pack, so it must have been some file that messed it up
Thanks again,
Chris
Stephen Turner
Philippe Cand
http://support.microsoft.com/ id=149378
Andrew Moiseev
Hi Alin,
I have the names.dat corruption on a newly created database, and running analyze with -F does not fix the issue. I am not able to access a single folder, In VSS I can see the file icons in the folder, but the fileNames is blank/missing (had long fileNames)
Can you help here is Analyze's output.
_________________________________________________
Analyze Visual SourceSafe Version 6.0 (Build 8169)
Database analysis in progress @ 5/09/06; 1:47p.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShare_Last2Docs.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShare_Last4Docs.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareApplyACL_Prod.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_171_docs.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_1_docs.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_2_docs.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_449_docs.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_PreCLinical_PROD_.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_PreCLinical_QA_1..
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUpload_PreCLinical_QA_2..
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUploadInProd_GESUB1.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file fileShareUploadInProd_RESI.txt.
Creating a new nameset, or long filename information, for the file MIGRATION_UTILITIES_LOGS.
File names.dat may be corrupt
Analysis complete @ 5/09/06; 1:49p
Potentially serious errors or inconsistencies were found.
Mussye,
MartinPEvans
Have you updated to VSS 6.0d and re-run analyze in fix mode on your database Also, are you sure you're running analyze on the correct database
Analyze from VSS 6.0d should fix these "empty filenames" problem. If you have upgraded to VSS 6.0d or VSS2005 and you still see this problem after running (analyze -f) you should contact product support and they will help you fix the database.
Alin
turkeytickler
I put VSS 6 in the subject line, is there something else to identify the version Sorry, I am not in front of the computer at this moment but I do recall there may be a build number as well. Is that what you are after
I am trying to add a new user through the menu. FILE | ADD NEW USER and then the program tells me it cannot find the Master database and provides me the path where it is indeed located. This is the initial situation that showed me I had a problem.
Next, partially in fear this was indicating a bigger problem, I decided to archive the VSS Master Database which had never been done. During the archiving process I get a popup window that says "File names.dat may be corrupt" and the HELP button on the popup suggests to run Analyze.exe twice. The first time to run without any flags and a second time using the flag "-F". I ran these two routines as suggested. Neither Analyze.exe found any problems with the database. I still cannot archive the database though, because I cannot run the archive menu item without getting the popup message telling me the Names.dat may be corrupt.
Steve
So the two issues may be entirely unrelated but the problems started when I could not add a new user and have continued with the inability to arhchive the database or fix the names.dat file, if indeed this file is the/a problem.
jsstone
Hi Mussye,
I see you're running analyze build 8189, which is the one shipped in 1998.
You should definitely consider upgrading (free) to VSS 6.0d build 31222 from December 2003, by installing VisualStudio6 SP6 http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/downloads/updates/sp/vs6/sp6/default.aspx.
SourceSafe PSS guys told me analyze from VSS 6.0c and 6.0d is able to fix similar names.dat issues for files, and when I tried once this proved to be true. I suspect it will fix your problem, too.
Alin
duck16
Kestutis
I'm having a similar issue. I updated to SP6 and still get a names.dat file error. When I try to run analyze.exe against it, it shows this at the top (Analyze Visual SourceSafe Version 6.0 (Build 8169)), even though I can go into Help/About and see that I'm on Version 6d(Build 31222). Is the analyze.exe I'm running just for the earlier builds If so, where is the analyze.exe for SP6 Or is the Analyze built into SP6, and how would I do that
Thanks!
dvidal
Hi Steve,
What version of VSS are you using (see Help/About box)
When you say "I can't add new users to the program" what exactly are you doing and what error message exactly do you receive
What flags and command arguments are you passing in to analyze Analyze should be able to fix names.dat corruption. Deleting names.dat is not recommended - while analyze should be able to reconstruct it, you'll lose long names for files with names longer than 31 characters.
Thanks,
Alin
TouchTheSquid
Hi CY19,
Yes, analyze build 8189 is the original 6.0 shipped 8 years ago. Is it possible that you had analyze running/open when you upgraded to SP6 and analyze.exe was not updated
I'd try reinstalling VS6 SP6 and make sure all VSS running applications and VS are closed.
You can verify the versions of files by looking at file Properties with Windows Explorer, too. In case the update fails again, you can unpack the SP6 in a folder (it will create a couple of cab files if I remember correctly), then you can use WindowsExplorer to navigate inside of the cab files, locate the analyze.exe for yourself and extract it on top of your old analyze.exe
Alin