CVS not packaging ("does not exist after cvs export -r HEAD"), can't figure out how to get it back

Posted by mlncn on March 10, 2008 at 5:21pm

Issue Summary

I apologize for the extreme messiness of this support request, but I just can't figure out what's going wrong. It's a just-committed module, so if there are steps to starting fresh (without starting a new project with a new name), that would be just fine, but I can't check out the project in a way that allows me to commit to it!

http://drupal.org/node/231951/release

Is giving me this error message:

Packaging error messages

* ERROR: contributions/modules/term_message does not exist after cvs export -r HEAD

A potentially related error message I'm getting in cvs on the command line is that "cvs tag: nothing known about" my module, term_message.

And the below error:

Ebony-II:modules ben$ cd term_message/ Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs status ? .DS_Store ? term_message.info ? term_message.install ? term_message.module cvs status: Examining . Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs commit -m "added code to implement missing admin functionality" cvs commit: Examining . Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs add * cvs add: cannot add special file `CVS'; skipping cvs add: scheduling file `term_message.info' for addition on branch `HEAD' cvs add: scheduling file `term_message.install' for addition on branch `HEAD' cvs add: scheduling file `term_message.module' for addition on branch `HEAD' cvs add: use `cvs commit' to add these files permanently Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs commit -m "added code to implement missing admin functionality" cvs commit: Examining . ? .DS_Store ** ERROR: Your commit is using a 'Sticky tag' which corresponds to ** a branch which is not valid in this CVS repository. If this ** commit were to proceed, you would create an invalid branch: ** HEAD ** ** See http://drupal.org/node/198469 for more information. cvs commit: Pre-commit check failed cvs [commit aborted]: correct above errors first! Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs tag -b DRUPAL-5--1 ? .DS_Store cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.info cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.install cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.module cvs [tag aborted]: correct the above errors first! Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs update ? .DS_Store cvs update: Updating . A term_message.info A term_message.install A term_message.module Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs tag -b DRUPAL-5--1 ? .DS_Store cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.info cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.install cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.module cvs [tag aborted]: correct the above errors first! Ebony-II:term_message ben$

This problem also showed up for Dries, and while no one had an answer at that time, my understanding is that he was able to continue on to be a productive contributor to the Drupal community ;-)

How do I start fresh with a CVS checkout?

Tried setting a new root:

Ebony-II:~ ben$ cd '/RCS/agaric/agaric-modules/'
Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ export CVSROOT=:pserver:agaric@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib
Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ cvs login
Logging in to :pserver:agaric@cvs.drupal.org:2401/cvs/drupal-contrib
CVS password: 

Reference:
http://nicksergeant.com/blog/2007/12/19/painless-drupal-revision-control...

Report-back to:
http://codepoets.co.uk/drupal-through-cvs
http://agaricdesign.com/committing-a-project-to-drupals-cvs

Though the task at hand is maintaining a contributed module that Agaric provides to the Drupal community by making available on Drupal.org -- this is not about deploying a Drupal site, yet.

Trial:

Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ cvs -d:pserver:agaric@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib checkout -d cmt -r HEAD contributions/modules/cmt
cvs checkout: Updating cmt
U cmt/CHANGELOG.txt
U cmt/LICENSE.txt
U cmt/NOTES.txt
U cmt/README.txt
U cmt/cmt.css
U cmt/cmt.info
U cmt/cmt.install
U cmt/cmt.may_prove_useful
U cmt/cmt.module
U cmt/cmt_admin.inc
U cmt/default_thresholds.inc
cvs checkout: Updating cmt/js
U cmt/js/cmt_terms_node_view.js
Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ cvs commit -m "better installation message"
cvs commit: Examining cmt
cvs commit: Examining cmt/js

That was successful.

Error:

Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ cvs -d:pserver:agaric@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib checkout -d term_message -r HEAD contributions/modules/term_message
cvs checkout: Updating term_message
Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ ls -la

[term_message is NOT there]

Help?

Comments

#1

Posted by mlncn on March 12, 2008 at 12:45pm

Recap: term_message was somehow committed, but not successfully.

A non-existent module produces this output when you attempt to check its name out:

Ebony-II:~ ben$ cd /RCS/agaric/agaric-modules/
Ebony-II:agaric-modules ben$ cvs -d:pserver:agaric@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib checkout -d nomodulebythisnameexists -r HEAD contributions/modules/nomudulebythisnameexists
cvs checkout: warning: new-born `nomodulebythisnameexists/modules/nomudulebythisnameexists' has disappeared

This is different than my "Updating term_message" (that results in absolutely nothing) above.

If no one knows how to fix this, could someone delete the project so I can start fresh in the same namespace?

^{benjamin, Agaric Design Collective}

#2

Posted by add1sun on March 12, 2008 at 1:07pm

Hm, well I'm not sure of the details but when I do an anon checkout the normal way and do not add -r HEAD I get a checkout of the empty dir (that is all that is in CVS right now: http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/term_message/). When I use the revision flag for HEAD I get nothing. AFAIK you shouldn't be using a HEAD tag at all.

Seems to me like you are using the HEAD tag and that is screwing things up. Try a checkout not using a revision tag.

#3

Posted by mlncn on March 12, 2008 at 11:22pm

Status:

active

» fixed

Thanks tremendously. That worked.

(Specifically:

cvs -d:pserver:agaric@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib checkout -d term_message contributions/modules/term_message
)

#4

Posted by mlncn on March 14, 2008 at 9:52am

Status:

fixed

» active

It took me quite a bit more to actually be able to commit this! I had (somehow) created a "HEAD" tag that was not a branch. Fixing this is a pain and a half, don't forget your -b flag when creating a branch tag! Here was the key step to deleting the bad tag and being able to commit to this project again, intuited from (if not quite described on) Resolving a 'sticky tag is not a branch' error:

cvs remove all files (you may have to physically remove them first), commit that change, and then you can delete the tag:

Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs tag -d HEAD
cvs tag: nothing known about term_message.info
cvs [tag aborted]: correct the above errors first!
Ebony-II:term_message ben$ rm term_message.info 
Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs remove term_message.info    
cvs remove: removed `term_message.info'
Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs commit -m "grr"
cvs commit: Examining .
Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs tag -d HEAD
? .DS_Store
? .svn
? term_message.install
? term_message.module
cvs tag: Untagging .
Ebony-II:term_message ben$ cvs commit -m "no more head tag"
cvs commit: Examining .

After this I was able to add and commit files and the module to save the nodes on Drupal.org could finally be born. (I had previously created a DRUPAL-5 branch, cvs tag -b DRUPAL-5, note that in Drupal 6 the naming convention is DRUPAL-6--1. If I'm missing any other steps the full dump of my flailing about to recover, after add1sun showed me how to check it out at all, is in a note on Agaric's site.)

TASK: If a cvs admin could kindly delete the empty so-called HEAD release node, which I screwed up in even more ways than described here, I can try to pretend none of this ever happened.

Thanks.

^{benjamin, Agaric Design Collective}