so that was because global.properties contained the following lines even though i selected false in the swing ui:

enable.publishing=${enable.publishing}
enable.notification=${enable.notification}

by examing it further it seems like the swing ui never wrote a customize.properties.

i'll just go back to good old trial and error again ;)

even doing this manually by copying customize.properties.template it seems that specifying an ssh.key is *required* otherwise you get similar recursive failures for that part.

....and is there any way that we can print to the console the same things we do to the build.log....took me a couple of retries to figure out when it says:

BUILD SUCCEDED and it "freezes" it means "i'm getting a s*load of dependencies from repository.com"

ok ...so i let it do its leaching over night and woke up to this:

c:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders|? build-nightly.bat product
Buildfile: common\buildRequirements.xml

cleanRequirements:
[delete] Deleting 1 files from C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclip
se.releng\requirements

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

BUILD FAILED
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\product\product
Build.xml:68: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\product\product
Build.xml:197: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\product\product
Build.xml:199: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\product\product
Build.xml:158: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\builder-wrap.xm
l:51: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\builder-wrap.xm
l:77: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\common\buildReq
uirements.xml:13: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\common\buildReq
uirements.xml:21: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\requirements\xerces\buil
dRequirement.xml:3: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\requirements\webtools\bu
ildDriver.xml:7: Error while expanding C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.
eclipse.releng\requirements\xerces\Xerces-J-bin.2.7.1.zip

Total time: 20 minutes 21 seconds
Buildfile: product\buildResults.xml

publish.log:

BUILD SUCCESSFUL
Total time: 0 seconds

and the build.log (which is mysteriously placed outside all the other "build directories" ;) contains:

Buildfile: product\productBuild.xml

nightly:

build:
[mkdir] Created dir: C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput\N200601232208
[mkdir] Created dir: C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput\N200601232208\all
[mkdir] Created dir: C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput\N200601232208\bundle
[delete] Deleted 3 directories from C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput
[echo] c:/work/os/jbosside/releng/org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng/requirements/eclipse/return.properties is not available

build.requirement:

getBaseEclipse:
[get] Getting: http://repository.jboss.com/eclipse/sdk/3.1.1/eclipse-SDK-3.1.1-win32.zip
[get] To: C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput\eclipse-SDK.zip

unzipEclipse:
[unzip] Expanding: C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput\eclipse-SDK.zip into C:\jbossidebuild\buildoutput
[echo] load properties from c:/work/os/jbosside/releng/org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng/requirements/eclipse/return.properties
[echo] Building JBossIDE with build type 'standalone.product'

run.builders:

nightly:

main:
[delete] C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\builders\workspace not found.
[echo] c:/work/os/jbosside/releng/org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng/requirements/xerces/return.properties is not available

build.requirement:

check.archive:

download.archive:

build.driver:
[unzip] Expanding: C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\requirements\xerces\Xerces-J-bin.2.7.1.zip into C:\work\os\jbosside\releng\org.jboss.ide.eclipse.releng\requirements\xerces

any tips to how i should continue would be appreciated (note: last time i tried it actually starting to build..now it just seem to stop in the middle of nowhere...)

where can i see the url ? ...and why no errors about it ?