Problems with using a symbolic link for .svn folder

[Oscar Lee]

My company uses TortoiseSVN internally to keep our files updated. The .svn folder for the project I have is massive (250GB) and as such I had to move it off to an external HDD. I created a symbolic link to the new location so that TortoiseSVN 'should' still continue to work.

I managed to run a clean-up, but when I tried to revert a file, it gave me an error 'Failed to run the WC DB work queue associated with (file)" and "Can't move (tmp file) to ... (original file): The system cannot move the file to a different disk drive". 

I found that this error is caused by Windows not letting a file be renamed while it is being moved. Does anyone know a solution to this? Why is this an issue that only occurs with a symbolic link setup?

[Stefan]

If it's only the revert command that doesn't work, then it might be TSVN that's causing the problem, not svn itself.

TSVN when reverting first deletes all files to the trash bin using the shell. Because that way if a revert is done accidentally, the user can still get the file back from the Windows trash bin.

But I'm not sure if that works with symbolic links, so the error might be from that.

Settings->Dialogs 1->use recycle bin when reverting

try unchecking that box.

[Oscar Lee]

Thank you for your reply. I've tried to disable the option but the same error remains. It seems like I'm the first person to try to use symbolic links for the .svn folder. Hopefully this can be looked into by the developers.

[Oscar Lee]

I found a similar problem with another SVN client and they mentioned that this was fixed by changing the implementation of the file rename method for Windows here: https://svn.boost.org/trac10/ticket/6809

[Oscar Lee]

Is there a possible workaround?

[Oscar Lee]

Stefan, is it possible to fix this please?

[Stefan]

On Saturday, January 5, 2019 at 5:10:05 PM UTC+1, Oscar Lee wrote:

Stefan, is it possible to fix this please?

First try the command line client:

svn cleanup /path/to/wc --vacuum-pristines

if you get the same error, then you have to ask on the subversion users list for help since then it's definitely a problem inside the svn library.

Stefan

 

[Oscar Lee]

The command line cleanup works, but only because no files have been modified. If I try to do a revert using the command line, I get the same errors, which I think is related to this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms837428.aspx

svn: E155009: Failed to run the WC DB work queue associated with '<redacted>\physics.sii', work item 108048 (file-install <redacted>/physics.sii 1 0 1 1)

svn: E720017: Can't move '<redacted>\.svn\tmp\svn-234E024' to '<redacted>\physics.sii': The system cannot move the file to a different disk drive.

[Oscar Lee]

Stefan, can you please try to reproduce this by putting the .svn folder on another drive and then create a symbolic link? I think this issue can be resolved by waiting for the file transfer to complete before renaming it, since I believe what TSVN tries to do now is to do the move and rename simultaneously.

On Saturday, 5 January 2019 17:51:00 UTC+1, Stefan wrote:

[Stefan]

since the command line client also reports errors:

please ask on the Subversion users list for help with this, since the problem exists within the svn library.

Stefan

[Oscar Lee]

Hi Stefan,

What do you mean by ask on the Subversion users list? Where can I find this? Sorry for my unfamiliarity.

Regards,

Oscar

[Stefan]

On Wednesday, January 9, 2019 at 5:41:26 PM UTC+1, Oscar Lee wrote:

Hi Stefan,

What do you mean by ask on the Subversion users list? Where can I find this? Sorry for my unfamiliarity.

TSVN is a subversion client which uses the svn library. And the svn library is a separate project. The mailing lists are here:

http://subversion.apache.org/mailing-lists.html