TortoiseSVN reports conflict, but no conflict can be found

Question

I have a working copy for my entire repository, which contains multiple Python projects. When I choose right-click --> SVN Update in Windows File Explorer I am getting an error message listing a particular project folder:

Command: Update
Updating: path\to\working\copy
Skipped obstructing working copy: path\to\working\copy\project
Completed: At revision: 176
Warning!: One or more files are in a conflicted state.

When I go to that project and right-click --> SVN Update, it updates successfully. There is also not conflict editor available and when I right-click --> TortoiseSVN --> Resolved there are not files available.

What could be causing the conflict? As long as this keeps occurring, it is impossible to update this project in my working copy.

Answer 1

Skipped obstructing working copy

this means that there's a working copy folder in the way: your update wants to add a folder with name 'project', but you already have a versioned folder 'project' in your working copy. Maybe you moved that folder from another working copy? Or that folder is its own working copy (if it has the hidden .svn folders then it's an independent, separate working copy).

To resolve: move the folder out of your working copy (or just delete it). Then run update again. The update will fetch a folder with the same name again. But it might not be the same as you had - that's why I recommend that you move the folder and delete it only after checking that the updated folder is identical with the original folder.

Answer 2

You can also check the option "Delete unversioned files and folders" in the clean up menu if your svn version supports this. That definitely makes things easier instead of hunting down those folders one by one (I always found them to be non-versioned copies).

Watch out though that you're not locally forgetting to commit any valid new file additions before going through with this cleaning..!

Answer 3

Try right click/TortoiseSVN/clean up.

This usually works for me.

Answer 4

With TortoiseSVN 1.9.5 on a Windows 10 system, I had a similar error message that occured when merging from a branch (Project/branch/A) back to trunk (Project/trunk). My working directory with the trunk had no local modifications, but the merge complained about the root of my working copy folder with

"Skipped obstructing working copy"

. The problem was, that my working copy was located on a different partition and "Project/trunk" was a Junction that pointet to the real location of the files on the other partition.

The fix was to perform the TortoiseSVN merge operation on the folder of the partition where the junction pointed to, that is, where the working copy files actually resided.

Answer 5

I was running into the same issue but it was happening at the root of a very large branch (c:\svn\root). I work deep down (c:\svn\root\some\dir\deep\down\) in only one of the directories so Stefan's explanation of the problem and solution didn't make sense.

My workaround was to update each of the directories individually in c:\svn\root\ then to come back out and update c:\svn\root\. This worked for me. Not sure what the problem really was.

Answer 6

I solved this issue without having to move files, as my obstructedsubfolders were correctly linked to the svn:

1. Checkin all files of the folders having the Skipped obstructing working copy
2. Now you can safely delete the obstucted folders (as we checked-in everything before)
3. Perform an Update on the root folder

Now the whole folder is again clean and updates on the root folder work.