svn: This client is too old to work with working copy; please get a newer Subversion client

I’ve bumped into this problem again – Subclipse was refusing to do anything (Share the project, update, commit, etc) with the source files.

It is appeared that the culprit was a Tortoise SVN – it is already built on subversion 1.5, while Subclipse is using 1.4.x.

The problem appears everytime when you do anything using newer client, like Tortoise SVN.  Newer client  leaves a different footprint, so Subclipse is getting upset with that fact.

To overcome the problem I’ve added subversione client into the Cygwin port – it is still some relatively old version (1.4.6-3). Then I checked out the project via cygwin version of svn.

It also helps when only a part of the source tree is damaged by a newer client, so you can simply overwrite these bits from an tree checked out using older version.  Just be sure to copy modified files to some safe location first.

UPD  The final solution is to upgdade to Subclipse >=1.4.2 as it is using Subversion 1.5.x. The problem will be completely fixed.

To do this you have to simply add new remote site in Eclipse:
Name: Subclipse 1.4.x (Eclipse 3.2+)
URL: http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.4.x

and remove the old one which refers to Subclipse 1.2.x.

The full installation instructions could be found here:
http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html

2 Responses to “svn: This client is too old to work with working copy; please get a newer Subversion client”

  1. Pete says:

    THANKYOU!! This seems to be a very common problem with no other clear documentation about it.

  2. vangel says:

    thanks. I shouldhave knows totoiseSVN and eclipse together will cause problem. mistakenly i used 1.2 subclipse instead of 1.4 i see no reason to use 1.2 anymore.

    thanks. your short blog saved my time

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