SVN frequently says file is locked by me in another working copy

Question

I have an SVN repository (hosted on Dreamhost) with needs-lock set on binary files. It sometimes happen that, while committing files locked and modified by me, the commit fails

Answer 1

Cleanup will not help. That's used for working copy locks, whereas you're running into an issue with files being locked in the repository itself as a means of implementing a mutex between users. See The Three Meanings of "Lock"

You probably have a client that's locking the file(s) for you in a different working copy without your knowledge (either locally or in a WC on your server), or perhaps you've got a WebDAV share that you've mounted and are opening the file(s) there which is causing a lock to be created.