🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi nocfury,
if you unmount any other network or external drive you cannot see any files too.
Drive mounts the VC server as network volume.
Did you re-connect? Then you should be able to work with the files again.

Markus

In theory it's like a network drive, but in practice it is not, because it doesn't ever actually copy data to that drive until you check it in.

Unfortunately, Adobe Drive and VC4 are so incredibly flakey right now, that the odds of you getting to actually check anything in at all are low.

We're in a studio with 8 PC's, all of which ran quite well on VC3 and whom I would consider most of our team to be experts on using VC. With the upgrade to VC4 we have essentially been completely crippled as a company, as we are having MAJOR connection problems now with VC4.

No one can seem to help us. Adobe tech support just suggests deleting the CS4ServiceManager directory, which although works, requires a reboot and thus destroys any workflow. It also does not prevent the loss of the non-checked-in data.

The forums just reveal other exasperated members. We are currently researching other products right now because every hour more random machines disconnect, or Adobe Drive actually crashes the OS. In fact, just a simple shared drive right now would be more useful.

Right at this very moment 3 of the machines randomly disconnected from the server on their own. Trying to reconnect results in an endless loop of the connection bar, and deleting the CS4ServiceManager directory without a reboot (1 of the machines absolutely cannot be rebooted right now because it�s the SERVER!!!!!!) results in the mysterious error of "The Server could not be connected", all while the rest of the machines in our studio are connected and working.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?

Like.... WWWWWWWHHHHHAAAAATTTTT!?!?!?!

No one in my studio has ever seen anything like this with production software, this is utterly astonishing and I am dumbfounded. This is the EXACT same setup we have used with VC3 for quite some time, and NEVER have we been dead in the water unable to access files even when VC3 gave us check-in problems. The lack of local files and the massive bugs in the Adobe Drive connection system make Version Cue 4 UNUSABLE software.

To Adobe, please fix this ASAP � you�re actually removing money (time) from my pocket right now.

Thank you for your time.

@nocfury

We have the same problem here as well. Its sad to say that Version Cue CS3 was much better than CS4, simply because if the server randomly disconnects (which it does) no one can do work, and people lose their data.

@Adobe

One more thing is that we do a lot of word document / excel spreadsheet files on version cue as well to track time, and potentially client documents organized. The new VC4 deletes all the versions if we try to save it and check it in. This is pretty unacceptable, now we are forced to copy the word document from the server to our hard drive, then edit it, then copy it back and save as a new version. What's the point of having version cue?!

Was there nobody testing this application before it was released? Someone definitely needs to be FIRED.

I'm realizing that "upgrading" to Version Cue 4 was a BIG MISTAKE (our studio is having the exact same problems as described above!). I wish I read this thread before upgrading!

@Adobe: WTF!!! Thank you for taking our money and delivering us hours of overhead to fix your "upgraded" VC software. Please manage your engineers better.

Does anyone know if Adobe is going to patch this travesty soon?

Has anyone successfully used VC CS3 with Creative Suite CS4?

Has anyone successfully used a 3rd party source control system with Creative Suite products?

thanks!

@ Jon
CS4 apps are not able to contact CS3 server. Only CS3 is able to connect to the CS4 server. So it is possible to use Bridge CS3 and all integrated apps like PS, IS, IC, Ai and Fl to work on a CS4 server with the known local repository, but CS4 files will be handled like non version cue files in CS3. CS3 server does not now these file formats and the integration changed.
So all the files have to be checked out first against CS3 server.

@ all
I'm very sad to here that it does not work for you and I'm here to help you as good as I can.

please try the following steps in case you have connection troubles:
1. at the server administration page > "advanced" tab, select "preferences" and enter the IP of your server hosting machine into the "External URL" field led by "http://" and for port choose "3703" if not in use already. Then reconnect to the server.

2. in Drive, disconnect and click the options link in upper right and there empty the cache.
Try to connect again.

3.
always do an initial check-in before you start working on a file. if using check-in/save as from integrated Adobe products like InDesign, InCopy, Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash this will happen automatically if a mounted server is the target. For non Adobe products you have to save them first there and afterwards check them in via Explorer/Finder context menu or Bridge CS4.

ADDITIONALLY: DO THIS ONLY IF NOTHING ELSE HELPS! SAVED AND NOT CHECKED IN FILES WILL BE GONE FROM ANY MOUNTED VERSION CUE VOLUME!
delete CS4ServiceManager folder in (If you'd like to help us to isolate the problem, please save the CS4ServiceManager.log located in the folder I suggest to delete here!)
You'll need admin rights!
MAC = users/"username"/Library/ApplicationSupport/Adobe/ ;

WIN = XP = c:\Documents and Settings\"account-name here"AppData\Adobe\

VISTA = c:\Users\"accountname here"AppData\Roaming\Adobe\

Caution: This will delete all your NOT CHECKED IN FILES and you get lost of that data! Your login credentials as well as your recent server entries in Drive panel will be gone too and have to be re-entered.

If the folder cannot be deleted, exit the CS4ServiceManager in Mac=Activity Monitor, WIN= Taskmanager before. Or be patient: the CS4ServiceManager will exit itself after 5 idle minutes.

Any information about your network settings, client machines and suites installed will help us.

Hope that helps.

Please come back in case of any new or additionally issues.

Markus

Hi Markus,

Based on your emails, you seem to be a VC insider (?)

When working in a VC aware program like Photoshop, and the user clicks on a PSD file, does that file get copied to the local cache before Photoshop works on it? Is there any benefit to increasing the Adobe Drive cache to 2GB or higher? Where are saved-but-no-checked-in files stored when a user tells Photoshop to save a PSD file to the Adobe network drive (local machine cache or on the server)?

Is Adobe working on any changes/fixes to Version Cue 4, and if so, what is the rough estimate of date of the patch release?

thanks,

JP

Hi Jon,
mmh, yes, I'm kind of insider...

Drive loads those parts of any file which are needed to edit it, into the local cache.
For a large PSD that can be only a part of the whole file, a 200 pages ID document may only be loaded up to page 5 if those pages are the ones to be edited. This will be measured as long as the VC server is mounted.
Increasing the cache means that Drive will use more cache from all opened documents until the limit is reached and than will erase all not actual needed data for files checked in already again. It will not erase local cache data from"saved only" assets.
The cache will on the other hand still grow bigger than the settings if needed for a big file and released after check in.

Unfortunately I am not the one to ask about any Adobe updates. sorry.

Hope you understand.

Markus

Hi Markus,

Thank you for your reply.

I understand. I hope that Adobe has assigned resources to update Version Cue 4, but I have no control over that.

It sounds based on your comments that increasing the cache size will greatly improve performance... so if a workstation has 100GB open on the drive, then allowing 10-20GB of VC CS4 cache would be good since Adobe Drive will have more room to copy open files over and work on them locally. Is this true?

Also, just to confirm: a saved file that is not yet checked in is stored in the local workstation cache drive and not on the server, so having a lot of files that are not checked in will eat-up the available cache space?

thanks!

JP

Hi Jon,
uooooh, 20-30 GB cache is really a non-tested edge case. I will try myself next week ;-)
I'm not sure if this would help really to improve performance.
Maybe you should try that more in a range of, I don't know, let's say 2 GB instead!?

Just to be more precise: still Drive will only cache those parts of a file which were edited, or better said, the application did hand off to the Drive. That won't change with more given cache space.

And, yes, if a file is only saved and not checked in, it is stored (but only the needed and edited parts!) in the local cache. This may be the whole file, but this is no guaranteed.
If you have more files open and the cache space does not fit, cache will grow as long as these files are needed in local cache.

Markus