[SourceJammer-devel] More on missing files

[Albert M. <amo...@ev...>]

Hello, Rob.

I was as surprised (and, probably, "incredulous" about the cause) as you about
the problems Kevin Cloudt and his team had with some missing files in the
repository. Perhaps as a punishment by the gods, however, we've suffered
something similar in our office: When trying to get a shared file, the client
would warn about an IOException from some locations, and about a missing file in
the server (providing the full path) from others. The corresponding source file
is, obviously, really missing, so either it wasn't created when it was added or
it was deleted sometime, without SJ updating its file system structures (as it
still appears in the client interface, and the XML files still exist).

Fortunately, the file had not been added long ago, and the person who has been
working with it remembers all he had done with it:
- First, it was added to the repository, of course.
- Then, a file share was created to a different directory.
- Some days later, a new share was added to yet another location.
- Right after that, this latest share was removed.
- Finally, some six new shares were created in various locations.

And now, when you try to download the file, the error occurs as the source does
not exist.

The plugin activity logs confirm these actions, but with a special, suspectful
and very intriguing difference: The fourth operation is logged as "remove-file",
not as the expected "remove-file-share". And why?
Well, the person who did it says he didn't choose the "Remove File Share" option
from the menu, but the "Remove File(s)", which asks you whether you want to
remove just this share or all of them. He clicked on the "Remove from this
folder", which should be equivalent to "Remove File Share" (shouldn't it?).
However, the server didn't log it as the same, and I believe that deleted the
source file.
You may say: "Well, who knows if he really clicked that button and not the other
one?". Well, if he did so, then there's an error anyway, because ALL the shares
should have disappeared and the file should not be visible anymore in the
repository.

Therefore, my guess is that there's a bug in the removal of a file share by
means of the remove file option. I ought to have checked that with some test
files (which would have been much shorter than writing this looong email),
but... well, I admit it, I'm too lazy.

May Kevin's problems have the same origin? I hope they do, so they would be more
easily solved.

Albert.