Error converting XML log to HTML

[Pyro]

This has happened about three times now...just enough to start getting annoying.

"Error at line 13875, position 3 loading 'C:\DOCUME~1\Rdroll\LOCALS~1\Temp\2\bld995.tmp': End tag 'step' does not match the start tag 'build'."

The problem that I can see around that line is that one step did not log the <step...> or <name>...</name>, but it did get the output, status, and /step. So obviously the <step> tags are mismatched now.

It has not happened on the same step yet, but always happens near the end of my build, on line 13,000+ during steps where I'm copying 5-20 files around. There are a couple dozen of these file copy steps. It has only happened when I run my build through the GUI, about 3 out of 8 times now. Every command-line build (which I've run nightly for about a week on this new computer) has worked just fine. I just moved my build to a faster computer and it started doing this.

It's like it's having trouble writing out to the .log file for some reason while starting a random step but just ignores it and continues on.

Has anyone seen this before or have any ideas for me?

Thanks!

Rob

[kinook]

That's not something we've seen before. Could you ZIP and send the .bld file and a couple malformed log files to support@kinook.com? It might give us some clues.

[kinook]

FYI for interested readers, this turned out to be caused by McAfee's VirusScan On-Access Scan, and disabling it resolved the problem (and also sped up the build by 13%).

[BasHamer]

I'm still debugging my code, and in the process I'm generating quite a few bad log files.

Is there a way to delete any old log file before you create a new one ? I tried to jsut delete it, but that will strip the headers for the current log file, so you still got a bad log file.

As for the reason I'm getting bad log files, well that is all me. I'm working on putting a gui in the build that will collect some setting for the build, and well, it doesn't quite work yet. But having to go in and delet the log file by hand each time something blows up is starting to become a paine.

Any sugestions are apreciated.

oh, and yeah, got one of those virus scanners at work as well, and no, turning it off is not an option.

[Pyro]

Well, since this was my thread to begin with, I might as well answer.

Enable this option: Tools>Application Options>Logging>Delete log file at the start of each build.

Note that for some reason, if you restart the build in the GUI over and over again, even if you reset the status of all the steps, it will still retain the previous log (and builds). You will have to close VisBuild, reopen it, and then start the build again to overwrite the previous log file.

[BasHamer]

well that works, do you happen to know if there is a way to do it from the build scipt ? Just to minimize the amount of documentation that I'll have to do for the program.

Thanks for the solution tough, that will get me atleast trough the debugging

[Pyro]

Deleting the log file during the build itself REALLY doesn't make any sense...because then you sort of need to log the fact that you've just deleted the log...

However, you could get around your problem by creating another .bld that simply calls your main .bld. Then edit and save your main build in a seperate VisBuild instance. Since this isn't terribly wonderful, you may only want to do that during the debugging phase.

[kinook]

See the Logging.bld sample for a way to delete the log file from within a build (just before file logging begins).

Also, we added some logic in the logging component for VBP 5.5 to retry for up to 5 seconds when opening the log file if it's in use, to hopefully mitigate issues caused by active anti-virus scanners.

[BasHamer]

thanks all, that gets me trough this problem.