Resolving The identity DOMAINUsername is not a recognized identity error message on check in

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Some information is out on the web about a bug that exists when creating a project that results in an error message similar to "The identity [Project Name]\Project Administrators is not a recognized identity" (to resolve that issue see James Manning's blog entry: https://blogs.msdn.com/jmanning/archive/2005/10/21/483682.aspx). However, I ran into this issue when my account name changed and not my physical account.

 

 

When attempting to commit my changes after my account name change I received the following error:

"The identity DOMAIN\MyUserName is not a recognized identity"

 

To resolve the issue, the following steps had to be performed on the workstation that was giving the error:

  1. Under the Release Candidate one could simply run tf /updateusername:DOMAIN\YourNewUserName and everything would work. However, I was running Beta 3 Refresh, so this syntax was not available.
  2. For beta 3 refresh the following commands must be run:
    1. tf workspaces /updateUserName /s:TFSSERVER
    2. tf workspaces /remove:* /s:TFSSERVER
    3. tf workspaces /s:TFSSERVER

 

If you're worried (like I was) that your pending changes would vanish, never fear! The /remove parameter works against a local cache file. The issue is that the /updateUserName parameter actually updates the workspaces on the server, but the cache file still has information about the old workspaces. the /remote:* command removes the workspace entries from the cache, so upon retrieving them again all is well.

 

Hope this proves useful.