[svn] How to fix "containing working copy admin area is missing" in SVN?

I deleted manually a directory I just added, offline, in my repository. I can't restore the directory.

Any attempt to do an update or a commit will fail with:

"blabla/.svn" containing working copy admin area is missing.

I understand why, but is there anyway to fix this.

I don't want to checkout the entire repo and add my changes to it manually, it would take hours.

I had this error recently, when the files were excluded by settings in my SVN globals. The error was especially nasty since I also deleted the files directly from the repository - and this meant that the above solutions were refusing wouldn't work. In this case, manually deleting the .svn directory from the directory that I removed from SVN allowed me to run an update which then allowed me to commit.

A common task I experienced was having to take one repo directory in staging and copy it to another repo - both under SVN and both called the same name. The way that worked for me was the following:

svn --force delete PROBLEMATIC-DIR
svn export "https://OLD REPO-A/ new-repo-A"
svn add new-repo-A
svn commit new-repo-A

I came across this problem when replacing a third party API library with a newer version, and none of the solutions here really worked for me because I wanted to replace the SVN version with the local version. My solution was as follows:

1) Move the offending folder to my home dir, delete it from SVN and commit:

mv foldercausingproblem ~/
svn --force delete foldercausingproblem
svn commit --message "Temporary removing folder with old API"

2) Put the folder back, add it to SVN and commit again:

mv ~/foldercausingproblem ./
svn --force add .
svn commit --message "Finally all working!"

Slightly irritating to have to commit twice, but it seems to have worked fine.

Didn't understand much from your posts. My solution is

1. Cut the problematic folder and copy to some location.
2. Do Get Solution From Subversion into another working directory (just new one).
3. Add your saved folder to the new working copy and add it As Existing Project (if it's project as in my case).
4. Commit;

The simplest that helped me:

rm -rf _dir_in_question_
svn up

If you have changes in the problematic dir, then this is not a good solution for you.

I had the same problem, when I was trying to switch "C:\superfolder"

Error messages:

Directory 'C:\superfolder\subfolder\.svn'
containing
working copy admin area is missing
Please execute the 'Cleanup' command.

After trying to do a "cleanup", I got the following error:

 Cleanup failed to process the following paths:
 C:\superfolder\
'C:\superfolder\subfolder\' is not a working copy directory

Solution:

1. Delete the folder "subfolder"
2. Clean up the folder "superfolder"
3. Try to switch again the folder "superfolder"

this worked for me. Please let me know if it also works for you.

I had this problem when I was trying to add a directory to svn. I solved it by going into repo browser. Right clicking in the left window, choosing add folder and adding the directory directly in the repo browser.

I then deleted the directory locally (after backup of course) did a clean up and svn update and everything was working again.

First of all checkout the project into your system in a folder. Then remove the .svn folder from conflict project and copy the .svn folder from new checkout folder and paste into your working copy folder. Then problem is solved.

We use maven and svn. It was an mistaken checkin of target directory to SVN that cause this error. Removing that fixed everything, if this hint helps anyone.

Just in case anyone wants yet another solution:

1. Check in your new folder as "foldername2"
2. Go into Tortise SVN repo browser
3. Rename "foldername2" to "foldername"
4. In windows explorer do an update

Hope it helps someone.

-Ev

What I did to fix this was to delete the local copy of the folder under question and then do an svn update of the parent directly afterwards.

Fixed it right up.

For me, the same issue happened when I both:

• deleted (--force) a .map file
• added *.map to svn:ignore via svn propedit svn:ignore .

My solution was to:

1. undo changes to the property
2. commit changes to the files
3. checkout a fresh copy of the repository (alas!)
4. change the property and commit

Can you try to check out a new copy of the parent directory?

Edit: To be bit more specific, I meant to suggest going up one level and deleting the containing directory. Then do a

svn update --set-depth infinity

to replace the directory.

The error "Directory 'blah/.svn' containing working copy admin area is missing" occurred when I attempted to add the directory to the repository, but did not have enough filesystem privileges to do so. The directory was not already in the repository, but it was claiming to be under version control after the failed add.

Checking out a copy of the parent directory to another location, and replacing the .svn folder in the parent dir of the working copy allowed me to add and commit the new directory successfully (after fixing the file permissions, of course).

I had this issue. Just move blabla to another location temporarily, tell svn to revert it, and then move it back. It is treated as a new addition. Simple!

I tried svn rm --force /path/to/dir to no avail but ended up just running svn up and it fixed it for me.

fwiw, I had a similar situation and used svn --force delete __dir__. That solved the issue for me. Then i continued working with my working copy as normal.

I added a directory to svn, then I accidentally deleted the .svn folder within.

I used

svn delete --keep-local folderName

to fix my problem.

I had this error recently. It was caused by root owning a couple of files in the directory giving this error.

After I changed the permissions everything worked as expected.

I just did 'svn revert /blabla' and it worked, the folder is back and I can svn delete it