TFS never automatically merges because of Conflict Type: Writeable File - A writable file by same name exists locally

Question

I am using Visual Studio 2017 and for the last couple weeks have not been able to get latest changes of my project without manually overwriting all files that contain changes of other people.

In the project explorer all conflicting files have the small lock icon indicating that they are under version control. I have neither pending nor excluded changes.

Through Google I found this SO question, but I am not sure if my project makes use of gated check-ins. I certainly did not create shelvesets for all of the conflicting files, as I have never touched some of them other as to clone them to my local machine.

How can I find out if my project uses gated check-ins or what else could cause the problem?

Answer 1

How can I find out if my project uses gated check-ins?

To find out if the project uses gated check-in, you can check all the build definitions for this project:

Navigate to a build definition --> Edit --> Triggers --> Gated check-in check if the option is enabled.

Please see TFVC gated check-in for details.

what else could cause the problem?

Edward's answer is very comprehensive in this thread TFS Conflict Type: Writable File - A writable file by same name exists locally You can troubleshoot accordingly based on that..

Besides, here is a similar thread for your reference : Unable to perform the get operation because the file already exists locally