TFS deleted files still show up in Source Control Explorer

One problem I've had in Team Foundation Server since Visual Studio 2005 and still in VS 2008 is when items are deleted by someone else, they still show up in Source Control Explorer, with a gray folder with a red X icon, even with "Show deleted items in the Source Control Explorer" unchecked in VS's Options dialog. Sometimes getting latest of the parent clears things up, but other times it doesn't, even with Get Specific Version with both Overwrite boxes checked to force a get. In this case, the only option I've found is to delete my workspace and recreate it, which means checking in everything beforehand, and getting latest of my working branches afterwards. It's a pain, but as specified here and approved by a Microsoft employee, that may be your only option until it's fixed--fingers crossed for VS 2010. (We won't get into the other things for which my fingers have been crossed since I first used TFS in 2005, things that VSS did just fine, such as rollback, check in changes and keep checked out, and search.)

Anyone have any better solutions? Deleting and recreating your workspace seems a bit drastic.

3 Comments

  • Peter,

    You may already know this but TFS 2005 does not allow you to permanently destroy version control files. TFS 2008 and above *have* that feature.

    As far as your issue goes, it might be related to a corrupt TFS cache. Close VS and try clearing the cache *after* making a backup.

    To clear the cache on a client computer for Team Foundation
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb778396.aspx

    Raj

  • I remember doing something like, deleting the file and checking in the deleted file (which has red X mark) in source control. This removed the file from TFS team explorer.

  • Mohan,

    I believe you're talking about just deleting the file, then checking in that change (a "delete" as opposed to an "edit" or "add"). That works fine for me. The problem is when someone else on my team deletes something (a folder, at least)--then TFS refuses to sync that change with what's in my workspace and on my hard drive.

    --Peter

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