What do you do if the file in TFS is locked by som

Question

Someone left the organisation but before leaving, he locked all the files for an unknown reason.

How do you unlock them all so that the other developers can work?

Answer 1

If the developer has left the organization, then the best thing to do is to delete their workspaces. This will unlock the files for you but also free up some resources on the server.

See the following blog post I did on the topic when it happened to me a few years ago.

http://www.woodwardweb.com/vsts/unlocking_files.html

You can either delete the workspace using the command line (tf.exe) or you can use the excellent TFS Sidekicks from Attrice.

Answer 2

For the following operation, you will need to be either a project administrator for the project you want to undo the check-in on or a Team Foundation Administrator if you want to do this across all projects.

If you still have the username of the person, you can simply do something like this:

• Open up Visual Studio command prompt (Start -> Programs -> Microsoft Visual Studio 200X -> Visual Studio Tools -> Visual Studio 200X Command Prompt)
• Run the following command:

tf lock /lock:none /workspace:WorkspaceName;USERNAME /recursive $/

To get the list of workspaces for a user, just run the following command from the same prompt:

tf workspaces /owner:username

For more commands, check tf /?

Answer 3

Here's an explanation of using TFS permissions.

Having the "Unlock other user's changes" permission set to Allow is required to remove a lock held by another user.

Answer 4

Use this solution as the very last resort.

I’m using TFS 2012. I went to the TFS database and ran the following queries. And it worked! Of course be very careful when messing with the database, take backups, etc.

The database is called Tfs_<<your_TFS_collection_name>>. Ignore the Tfs_Configuration MSSQL database. I'm not sure but if you don't have a Tfs_<<your_TFS_collection_name>> database, settings might be in the Tfs_DefaultCollection database. Locks are stored in tbl_PendingChange.LockStatus.

/*Find correct row*/
SELECT LockStatus, PendingChangeId, *
FROM tbl_PendingChange
WHERE TargetServerItem like '%<<fileName>>%'

/*Set lock status to NULL (mine was set to 2 initially)*/
UPDATE tbl_PendingChange SET LockStatus = NULL WHERE
TargetServerItem like '%<fileName>>%'
AND PendingChangeId = <<PendingChangeId from above>>