`bzr info -v bzr://host/branch` hides actual branch/repo format

Just to add something here:

This bug renders bzr:// and bzr+ssh:// protocols useless for stacked branches, which IMHO:
- is a substantial problem
- will cause a lot of confusion, and I suspect may turn some people away. (I've lost half a day, only trying to see what the problem was. Which isn't easy when you are a relatively new bzr user, and are trying to establish a good working model while getting the hang of the exact differences between pull, branch (--stacked), commit (--lightweight), ...)

In particular, I suspect that this bug causes the following things:

1) you cannot 'branch --stacked' from a remote location that is available via bzr:// only.
(In my case as on http://fourkitchens.com/blog/2009/02/09/bazaar-branch-drupal-head-all-history , method 1.
Error received:
bzr: ERROR: Received bad protocol version marker: 'Source repository format does not support stacking, using format:\n Packs 5 (adds stacking support, requires bzr 1.6)\n'.)

2) otherwise, if you try to branch anything 'normally (i.e. non-stacked)' over bzr:// , you end up with a branch that really has format 'unnamed' (or at least a local 'bzr info' says so.). I'm almost sure that causes more weirdness down the line. (Like messages "Source format does not support stacking, using format: '...'" when you try to stack a branch on this one.)

3) if you create a stacked branch on your server, and then want to branch/pull/checkout that to your local computer over bzr(+ssh):// , that does not work.
(Error received:
bzr: ERROR: Not a branch: "/data/www/drupal/bzr-repo/6-modules/". < -- which is the path of the stacked-on branch.)

By the way: Bug #270397 (which was marked as high) is NOT fixed, as far as I can see. It's the same as my point 1. And I've tried versions 1.16.1, 1.13, 1.6.1 & 1.5 in the meantime, because I figured there must be some past version that could do that (since the bug was marked 'Fix Released'). Without success.

By the way #2: Might the fix to this also repair the 'bzr init inside repository; bug (#292553) ? Or is that separate?

Please file separate bugs for separate issues — it's much easier to mark two
bugs as duplicates than it is to break apart a long comment like this an put all
the various parts in the appropriate bugs.

Roderik Muit wrote:
[...]
> In particular, I suspect that this bug causes the following things:
>
> 1) you cannot 'branch --stacked' from a remote location that is available via bzr:// only.
> (In my case as on http://fourkitchens.com/blog/2009/02/09/bazaar-branch-drupal-head-all-history , method 1.
> Error received:
> bzr: ERROR: Received bad protocol version marker: 'Source repository format does not support stacking, using format:\n Packs 5 (adds stacking support, requires bzr 1.6)\n'.)

This is a serious bug, but it's a different bug to this report, which is about
“info -v” reporting “unnamed”/“bzr remote” rather than anything useful. The
info -v output is purely informational and does not itself cause other bugs.

Please file a new bug for the branch --stacked failure, I haven't seen it before
and it's not a known bug at all. At a guess, if you are running bzr serve out
of inetd then I suspect it may be related to bug 144394, but file a new a bug so
we can track it properly. It is definitely is not 196080.

In general bzr branch --stacked bzr:// *is* expected to work, and our test suite
has tests that exercise it. So we are very interested in reports that it
doesn't work!

> 2) otherwise, if you try to branch anything 'normally (i.e. non-
> stacked)' over bzr:// , you end up with a branch that really has format
> 'unnamed' (or at least a local 'bzr info' says so.). I'm almost sure
> that causes more weirdness down the line. (Like messages "Source format
> does not support stacking, using format: '...'" when you try to stack a
> branch on this one.)

The “unnamed” in info output is a symptom of the way bzr info reports formats,
rather than a cause of anything directly. The “does not support stacking”
messages are again separate bugs, please file a new bug report about this.
Typically it's a bug where some operation is creating your local branch in the
default format rather than the format you are branching from, or something like
that (which is unrelated to how info works).

> 3) if you create a stacked branch on your server, and then want to
> branch/pull/checkout that to your local computer over bzr(+ssh):// , that does
> not work.
> (Error received:
> bzr: ERROR: Not a branch: "/data/www/drupal/bzr-repo/6-modules/". < -- which
> is the path of the stacked-on branch.)

This is also not this bug. This is possibly bug 264975.

> By the way: Bug #270397 (which was marked as high) is NOT fixed, as far as I
> can see. It's the same as my point 1. And I've tried versions 1.16.1, 1.13,
> 1.6.1 & 1.5 in the meantime, because I figured there must be some past version
> that could do that (since the bug was marked 'Fix Released'). Without success.

It's *much* easier for us to manage this information if you add it to that bug
report, rather than an unrelated report where this information is likely to be
missed or forgotten.

Bug 270397 still seems fixed to me (and again, we added a test at the same time
as we added the fix). So I think you...

Okay, I'm sorry. I do try to report bugs in a convenient way, usually. But there was so much different stuff going wrong, and at the same time I still had to wrap my mind around so many things / protocols / subcommands to all test in parallel, that I needed to see structure before really seeing what was wrong.

(And I started seeing too much structure/likely ties between the errors, apparently.)

As I have no control over the server that gives me this error, and as I have discovered I cannot reproduce it myself... (and even at the server giving the error, it seems to be coming and going!?!)... I just passed it on to the people operating the server and they said they "would check with the other Bazaar developers". (http://fourkitchens.com/blog/2009/02/09/bazaar-branch-drupal-head-all-history#comment-238)