Ticklish Techs

Subversion is just the right thing for the small sized projects Benjamin and I do. We like it, put it’s not perfect and sometimes you find yourself in a deadlock like this one: Committing fails, because you need to update. Updating fails, because you database is corrupt and needs a clean-up. Cleaning-up fails, because there is lock on some files or folders from a previously failed action. Releasing the lock fails for any other reason.

After working with subversion (and the Tortoise-client) for a couple of years I know how to handle most problems, but last week I ran into an really persistent deadlock that drove me crazy. After almost two hours and finally attacking the problem with process-explorer, I found the cause: Copernic desktop search had locked a file inside a .svn – Folder, so it couldn’t be changed or deleted.

So be sure to have the "Indexing performance" of Copernic desktop search or similar tool switched off, when working with Subversion.