svn:switch doesn't work with relative svn:external?

Question

We have a subfolder that is a relative svn external (../project/subfolder). In a fresh trunk checkout it points to (...TRUNK/project/subfolder) and in a fresh branch checkout i

Answer 1

Alas, I believe this is still not fixed, despite that the bugfix mentioned above was implemented a long time ago.

I have an externals whose name has embedded spaces and uses a double relative path. My external references a file in the same branch but over and down, like so: ../../myOriginFolder/itsSubfolder/my file name.pdf

Once I renamed the branch, now my repo is broken using TortoiseSVN 1.7.8 (or its commandline SVN 1.7.6). The old working copy cannot be updated correctly after its switch, nor can I checkout a fresh copy of the old-named branch! All of the commands - checkout-to-old-revision, update-to-old-revision and switch-and-update - will fail. The only thing that works ok is to do a fresh checkout and then move ahead, never back.

This seems like a pretty bad bug! It means that as a result of my using the relative path externals, I can no longer rename/switch/revert my branches.

I wonder if anyone has seen this and has a workaround? I'm wondering if I should just hard-code those references. Even that might be better than this failure.

I wonder also if the fix referenced above may now be failing because between 1.6 and 1.7 the working copy format was changed. Now there is only one top level breadcrumb; possibly that could relate to the issue? If I could still checkout that folder, I'd compare the /.svn/ info for that fresh checkout of latest vs for prior name.

Here are the details of the error I see.

TortoiseSVN says : External failed c:\myRepo-keyword\myDestinationFolder\my file name.pdf Error Report of '/svn/myrepo/!svn/me': Could not read chunk size :connection was closed by server.

Apache/VisualSVN event log says; Source: VisualSVN Server 2.5 Date: 8/21/2012 11:20:57 AM Event ID: 4000 Level: Information Description: switch /myRepo-Path/myOriginFolder/itsSubfolder/my file name.pdf/my file name.pdf /myRepo-Path/mySubfolder/my file name.pdf@7178

Here is the error from a fresh checkout of the external-ed folder from a revision prior to the rename. External failed: C:\VcsSvn\3.7.8.6328.RuntimeRefs\Stroz Review User Guide.pdf
Error: URL
Error: 'http://myurl/svn/myOldRepo-Path/myOriginFolder/itsSuubfolder/my file name.pdf'
Error: at revision 7179 doesn't exist
Completed: At revision: 6328

//edit Thanks to another stackoverflow user, I found this open ticket that may be related; http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4150

//edit2; Another poster recommends avoiding externals: How can I branch in SVN and have it branch my svn:external folders as well?