Hi,

Was wondering if anyone has seen this problem and possibly have a workaround for it.

If we create a project plan using Microsoft Project 2003 (or 2007), publish the plan to the team server and then save the .mpp into a document list in the Project Portal.

When attempting to edit the file project always displays the error "The file is locked by another user", read-only, notify, etc.. However the other user is me! Sometimes the error can be avoided by deleting Temporary Internet Files but not always.

Curiously this only affects .mpp files that have been associated with a team project and are stored in the project portal. Storing them on the file system, or storing unbound plans in the portal works just fine.

Thanks in advance for any feedback,

Neil.

Hello Neil,

Here is another post on this issue:

http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=622951&SiteID=1

Do let us know if this resolves your problem. If it doesn't, we would be interested in knowing more about your scenario and see how we can help fix this issue.

Thanks!

Hi, I will check with the guys who are seeing the problem whether the workaround mentioned in that thread works for them. If I read it correctly it involves checking the .mpp file in & out through the portal interface and then choosing edit from Team Explorer?

If it doesn't prove succesful I will report back with our reproduction of the problem - we've been able to reproduce it with a number of different plans so far but have not written down all the steps we have performed.

What other information would you need from us to help get to the bottom of it?

Thanks,

Neil.

Hi, sorry for the delay in reporting back.

The problem does seem to be due to Sharepoint's short term locks, as leaving the file for more than ten minutes or overnight allows the file to be edited again.

The workaround in the previous thread does not seem to work for us though:

1. Checkout MPP in portal
2. Choose edit in Team Explorer - all ok
3. Checkin MPP in portal
4. Remember the work item you forgot to edit
5. Checkout MPP in portal
6. Choose edit in Team Explorer - File is locked for editing

This only occurs with MPP files that have been bound to a TFS Project.

Thanks in advance for any help that might get us around this,

Neil.

Hi Neil,

I'm curious, were you ever able to resolve this issue? Do you still have to wait the 10 minutes before checking out MPP files? It seems like in this post and the previous one the issue was never resolved aside from the waiting workaround.

Thanks,
Matt

Hi Matt,

No, we still don't have a resolution to this issue beyond going to make a coffee and trying again.

Do shout if you want us to try or check anything.

Neil.

We've got this logged as a bug and we're definitely seeing the same in our own testing internally. That's the good news - we have a repro and we're actively working on it.

The bad news is that as of this exact moment, we don't (yet) have a workaround, but as we work through the bug we hope to formulate a valid workaround. If we can figure one out (beside the "coffee" workaround :) then we'll post back on this thread.

Thanks for your patience, and we're extremely sorry for the inconvenience - I'm sure it's a little maddening to have to drink so much coffee! ;)

Sorry it's taking us so long - I'll ping to try and get an update.

Thanks.

A big thanks to Mareen Philip who responded with the details.

As it turns out, this is unfortunately a bug in Office itself (they have a repro case with a simple Office addin, no TFS involved). We're hoping that this can get fixed in Office 2007, but that's up to the Office team, of course.