investigating

provide more details because I cannot duplicate the issue based on the info you
have provided so far.

I was able to build from a clean checkout.

Happened to me again under the same conditions.
cvs co stable
ant -f nbbuild/build.xml build-nozip (fails because of no prune option)
cvs upd -dP
ant -f nbbuild/build.xml build-nozip (fails on appsrvbridge)
cd serverplugins/external
ant cd ../..
ant -f nbbuild/build.xml build-nozip (builds OK)

Thanks for providing more details on the process you are using to do the build.

I have to wonder why you aren't using the steps outlined here:
http://www.netbeans.org/community/guidelines/commit.html (but I digress)

Since the continuous, nightly and just about every other build I have heard of
or monitored is "ok", I am going to lower this issue to P2.

Here are some other, dated instructions about how to build NetBeans...
http://www.netbeans.org/kb/articles/start_dev_NB.html

provide more details because I cannot duplicate the issue based on the info you
have provided so far.

I was able to build by following your instructions.

maybe you could include:
1. the text of the actual error,
2. details about your build environment (os/jdk would be useful)

OS: Linux, RH9
Java: JDK1.4.2_05, JDK1.5.0_03
Ant: 1.6.2

Reproducible anytime.
cvs -d :pserver:me@cvs.netbeans.org:/cvs co -P standard
ant -f nbbuild/build.xml
will fail after few minutes with:
[...]
projectized-common.compile:
    [mkdir] Created dir:
/space/nenik/work/nb4/serverplugins/sun/appsrv/build/classes
    [javac] Compiling 121 source files to
/space/nenik/work/nb4/serverplugins/sun/appsrv/build/classes
   [repeat]
/space/nenik/work/nb4/serverplugins/sun/appsrv/src/org/netbeans/modules/j2ee/sun/api/ServerInterface.java:21:
package javax.management does not exist
[...]
   [repeat]         ^
   [repeat] 100 errors
   [repeat] 26 warnings
  [nbmerge] Failed to build target: all-serverplugins/sun/appsrv

BUILD FAILED
/space/nenik/work/nb4/nbbuild/build.xml:567: The following error occurred while
executing this line:
/space/nenik/work/nb4/nbbuild/build.xml:562: The following error occurred while
executing this line:
/space/nenik/work/nb4/nbbuild/build.xml:613: The following error occurred while
executing this line:
/space/nenik/work/nb4/serverplugins/sun/appsrv/build.xml:19: The following error
occurred while executing this line:
/space/nenik/work/nb4/nbbuild/templates/common.xml:80: Compile failed; see the
compiler error output for details.

Total time: 7 minutes 17 seconds

Petr,

I experienced very similar issue two weeks ago. I wasn't able to dig into sharp
details, but one of uncertain and/or potential reasons was that it started to
work properly when I removed all JDK 1.5 stuff from $PATH and $JAVA_HOME.

I experienced this build behavior on Windows XP SP2, Ant 1.6.3, JDK 1.5.0_04
under cygwin. I cannot recall in which module it was failing. When I decided to
do deep investigation using "-debug" logs, it started to work properly and then
I ceased from further investigation with "acceptable" explanation I fixed that
by $PATH aand $JAVA_HOME modification.

As this seems to be common issue, it would be fine it's properly investigated
and documented as the issue is realy weird.

Just my $0.02.

corrected the platform and OS entry.

You may have updated at a bad time on Friday.

The continuous build was broken for about 6 hours on Friday. The errors were
corrected and the continuous build is green at this moment.

You may want to do a new update.

Reassigning to AppServer8 component.

> You may have updated at a bad time on Friday.

Hardly. It is happening to me consistently for about a month. Everytime I do a
clean checkout, the build fails.

> the continuous build is green at this moment.
That means nothing. Continuous build uses slightly different infrastructure.
Moreover, ant -f nbbuild/build.xml clean real-clean doesn't delete the
unscrambled external libraries in serverplugins/external, which is both wrong
and prevents reproducing this problem using real-clean.

OK, I've found the difference: I'm running with
-Dnetbeans.no.pre.unscramble=true, which will prevent pre-unscrambling, but the
module should still call unscramble from the place where it needs the library,
as every other module does.

Summary:
1. nbbuild/build.xml:real-clean should list serverplugins
  (mzlamal manages that part of nbbuild/build.xml, it seems)
2. serverplugins/sun/appsrv/build.xml should call
   <ant dir="../external" target="unscramble"/> from build-init
   (the structure of that module scripts seems quite outdated to me.

Thanks for providing the additional details necessary to reproduce the error.
Providing the build log and the actual error message when you filed this issue
initially would have probably shortened the analysis time.

Hmmm.

I spoke too soon.

I still cannot reproduce this issue.  I did:

cvs -d $NB_CVSROOT co -P standard 
ant -Dnetbeans.no.pre.unscramble=true -f nbbuild/build.xml build-nozip

The build fails, with the error:

Target `all-versioncontrol' does not exist in this project.  It was used from
target `nbmerge-build-one-cluster'

Have you forgotten to mention any other property definitions or other "magic"
that may be interfering with your build?

filed issue 62011 to track the all-versioncontrol issue.

It looks like somebody commited code without notifying folks to update their
workspace.

These changes address the 'build part' of the issue.

http://serverplugins.netbeans.org/source/browse/serverplugins/external/build.xml?r1=1.1&r2=1.2

http://serverplugins.netbeans.org/source/browse/serverplugins/sun/appsrv/build.xml?r1=1.4&r2=1.5

I have reassigned this issue to nbbuild to address the 'real-clean' part

Vince/Ruďa, what specifically is the problem in nbbuild? real-clean already
*does* clean all */external dirs.

Obsolete milestone, please reevaluate

Probably obsolete. (1) real-clean now cleans */{,*/,*/*/}external/ dirs. (2) cvs-clean cleans anything real-clean missed.