Can an Eclipse-RCP based app do a “local” restore

Question

I maintain an application that builds upon Eclipse RCP.

I'm trialling p2 updates. In the trial, updating with new versions/features works perfectly.

But, we're having trouble with revert . We can select a former version from the Installation History , but the app then says it can't find the correct previous feature release for that version.

Is this because the P2 update repository doesn't contain the earlier versions (we just overwrite it for each new version).

I wasn't expecting the P2 repo to be involved, it did look like the app just kept copies of previous versions.

So, for a RCP app to rollback, does the earlier target version have to be present in the p2 repo?

Answer 1

Yes, the versions of the plug-ins to revert to are required either locally or in a remote p2 update site ( Window > Preferences: Install/Update > Available Software Sites ). By default, the p2 garbage collector deletes the local old versions of updated plug-ins that are no longer needed next time Eclipse is started.

The p2 garbage collector can be disabled by adding the following line to your plugin_customization.ini :

org.eclipse.equinox.p2.garbagecollector/gc_enabled=false