Forum Discussion

alex_hokanson's avatar
alex_hokanson
Occasional Contributor
13 years ago

Can't find Description.tc.log

What causes this sort of error.  Whenever I run a test on one of my machines, I get this after the test finished and then I dont' know if the test passed, failed, etc.  The project suite that I am working with is in network/shared mode.



I have tried opening the same project suite and the same test item on a different machine, but everything works fine.  I have tried copying over all of the files from the working shared directory to the non-working shared directory to no avail.  I have also tried deleting the shared directory and starting over, but that doesn't help either.  



It seems that TestComplete can't create the Description.tc.log file, or maybe cannot write to that location.  Any ideas?
  • hlalumiere's avatar
    hlalumiere
    12 years ago
    To be honest, there are versions of every file IO API that supports longer path name. That limitation was essentially lifted after Windows XP. You can call the unicode version of the API by pre-pending "\\?\" to your path. C:\TestPath becomes \\?\C:\TestPath. That raises the limit to 32K length.  This might however be incompatible with some implementations if you supply it externally, the issue should be solved internally, by Smartbear.
  • alex_hokanson's avatar
    alex_hokanson
    Occasional Contributor
    12 years ago
    Ok, I found the real cause. 



    Windows has a file path length limit: 



    "In the Windows API (with some exceptions discussed in the following paragraphs), the maximum length for a path isMAX_PATH, which is defined as 260 characters."



    from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx



    So TestComplete could save the path via relative path in the configuration files, but when executing various read/write operations on specific files Windows would silently error and then TestComplete would throw the error that it can't find the Description.tcLog file.  I figured I would post a real solution after this ocurred to a coworker of mine.

  • alex_hokanson's avatar
    alex_hokanson
    Occasional Contributor
    13 years ago
    To be clear, it is Description.tcLog.



    As for permissions, TestComplete is still writing all of the other necessary files to that directory (screenshots mainly), so I doubt it is a permissions thing.



    I am using TestComplete v9.1
  • alex_hokanson's avatar
    alex_hokanson
    Occasional Contributor
    13 years ago
    I have tried all of the tips from the linked articles, but I still can't get TestComplete to save a log.  I even tried using the repair option from the installer.



    Is there any option other than to do a fresh install?
  • alex_hokanson's avatar
    alex_hokanson
    Occasional Contributor
    13 years ago
    I think I figured it out.  I now see my logs.  All I did was delete all of the folders that were created by shared mode (I made them all), change the name of the project suite to something without spaces in it, and then reopened the project.



    It didn't prompt me for shared mode, but it works now and that is all I care about.  I don't place on using shared mode for this test project suite, so I guess you could call this resolved. :P
  • hlalumiere's avatar
    hlalumiere
    Regular Contributor
    12 years ago
    To be honest, there are versions of every file IO API that supports longer path name. That limitation was essentially lifted after Windows XP. You can call the unicode version of the API by pre-pending "\\?\" to your path. C:\TestPath becomes \\?\C:\TestPath. That raises the limit to 32K length.  This might however be incompatible with some implementations if you supply it externally, the issue should be solved internally, by Smartbear.