Subclipse complains "Path is not a working copy" after moving workspace

Question

I recently moved my Eclipse workspace directory and now Subclipse complains every time I open a file, dumping to the console something like:

Path is not a working copy directory

svn: '[original (pre-move) directory path]' is not a working copy

No such file or directory

This also happens when I explicitly try to view the history of a file. This persists across SVN cleanups, closing and re-opening Eclipse, etc.

Update, checkin, checkout and so on all seem to work fine, and Tortoise doesn't complain at all, so clearly it's not the SVN metadata that's screwed up, it's some Subclipse-specific metadata. Can anyone tell me how to blow this broken metadata away?

Edited to add: "Team > Disconnect" followed by "Team > Share" doesn't solve the problem.

Edited again to add: I've grepped through the whole .metadata directory and one of the project directories for a unique element of the old path and can't find it anywhere except in .metadata/.log (the error message itself) and some old Findbugs warnings. Very nice.

"Team > Disconnect" followed by "Team > Share" doesn't solve the problem. works for me!! — zengr, Aug 10 '10 at 18:26

score 23 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 16 '11 at 21:57

23

You need to delete the .syncinfo files. This is easily done (in most cases) by closing and opening Eclipse, however you can also do so manually as in the following:

To delete the cache, close Eclipse. The cache is stored in:
[workspace]/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects/PROJECTNAME/.syncinfo
So you can just find and delete all files named .syncinfo in
[workspace]/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.resources/.projects

Quoted from this article: http://subclipse.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=1047&dsMessageId=868799

edited Dec 16 '11 at 21:57

ekangas

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answered Sep 17 '10 at 06:17

Kyle Patrick

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you may need to close and open your projects for the icons to reappear after you delete the cache files. – Kyle Patrick Sep 17 '10 at 06:30
@Cerin Also removed mine from version control entirely too and gives just a ? – Kairan Jan 06 '15 at 18:26

score 18 · Answer 2 · edited May 25 '16 at 09:22

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I just did a "Team -> Cleanup" and this exact error went away! I also got this error because I moved between machines and the path wasn't the same.

Using Eclipse 3.6 and the Subversion 1.6 plugin.

Update in 2016: Still works perfectly with Eclipse 4.5.2 and Subclipse 1.10.

edited May 25 '16 at 09:22

zb226

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answered Dec 07 '10 at 14:26

nightowl

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Thanks, your solution worked well for me! Also the easiest to try out :) – Oren Bengigi May 15 '12 at 08:34
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Refresh/Cleanup is greyed out for me – Kairan Jan 06 '15 at 18:28

score 4 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 15 '09 at 09:26

Edited to add: Nope, spoke too soon. This doesn't fix it. Some files just seem not to exhibit the problem.

The following seems to solve the problem:

Team > Disconnect.
Quit Eclipse.
Blow away .metadata/.plugins/org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.*.
Restart Eclipse.
Team > Share.

Not sure how the old path was actually being stored in the plugin prefs, but it must have been in there somehwere. It's kind of pathetic of Subclipse to store absolute paths, but apparently it is.

There's a bug filed on this, or at least on the same error message. No context. Fifty cents says it gets rejected.

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jan 23 '14 at 22:07

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I got the error when I tried to rename a class by changing the case from DAO to Dao in Eclipse.

I had to rename it to something like Dao2 and then was able to rename it to Dao.

edited Jan 23 '14 at 22:07

Kevin Panko

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answered Jan 23 '14 at 21:46

David B

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 17 '14 at 11:25

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What worked for me: Do a "refactor - rename" on the project => after that do it again to rename it back to the original name.

answered Oct 17 '14 at 11:25

JanTheGun

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score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 05 '11 at 23:32

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I'm sure there are many causes with different solutions, but I found the one that worked for me at Dan Wilson's blog. Simply remove the offending folders from the workspace (probably saving them if they have new content), update (letting Subversion recreate the folders), then move the contents back into the fresh folders in your workspace.

edited Oct 05 '11 at 23:32

Chris Frederick

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answered Oct 07 '10 at 10:00

Mike Blyth

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RichN · Answer 7 · 2009-09-15T08:43:31.983

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Hard to say without further information.

Did you move the whole workspace or just the content?

Also, you can try creating new workspace from scratch and check out the whole project again.

Alternatively, you may try deleting the .metadata directory and relink the project again using File -> import -> existing project into workspace and then relink the SVN data through Team -> Share projects (with an 's'), or maybe just do this last bit after first disconnecting the project from SVN.

edited Sep 15 '09 at 08:43

answered Sep 15 '09 at 08:37

RichN

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I moved the whole workspace directory. I'm sure recreating everything from scratch would work, but that seems stupid. I just tried disconnect/share and that didn't fix it -- I'll update the question to note that. – David Moles Sep 15 '09 at 08:50
Sorry about that. And it looks like the disconnect - reconnect thing failed, too. I gave up.... – RichN Sep 15 '09 at 15:01

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 09 '09 at 13:32

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I was having the same error message using subclipse with javahl on a project that is out of the workspace directory. Changing to svnKit has resolved my problem.

answered Oct 09 '09 at 13:32

Serxipc

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I'm not about to try it again to test it now, but that sounds very plausible. :) Thanks! – David Moles Oct 21 '09 at 07:32
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It works when followed by performing update operation on working copies – Dmitry Jun 27 '11 at 16:12
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This isn't the solution, SVNKit is not good to have as svn client. – Ram Jul 12 '18 at 06:44
I just did a right click -> maven -> update project and it works for me – user3401235 Aug 13 '20 at 15:35

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 06 '13 at 07:29

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In my case I had the folders of the projects in the Project Explorer and just had to reopen the project

answered Aug 06 '13 at 07:29

enkara

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Nov 12 '13 at 18:11

For me, this error message was caused by an out-of-date installation of Subclipse, and the underlying SVNKit and JahaHL libraries. I have been using TortoiseSVN outside of Eclipse to manage my project directories, and my recent upgrade to the 1.8.x series of (Tortoise)SVN tools broke my working copies for Subclipse.

All I had to do to fix, was go to Help->"Install New Software..." and click "Add..." to add a new update site. I picked the latest update site for the latest release on http://subclipse.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectProcess?pageID=p4wYuA and upgraded Subclipse from there.

Then all my existing projects just worked, and I could reconnect to the one I had already tried disconnecting from without problems.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jul 20 '15 at 13:13

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checkout the whole project to a temp dir, then I copied the first level .svn directory and replaced my working copy .svn folder with this.

http://blog.itopia.de/directory-svn-containing-working-copy-admin-area-is-missing/275

It woks for me.

answered Jul 20 '15 at 13:13

Sergio

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score 0 · Answer 12 · edited Jan 23 '14 at 22:07

I have the same problem

I had a new project, added it to SVN. Then everything works as normal, until I try and refactor-rename any java file, I get:

move D:/dev/sk_ws/ge-parent/ge-core/src/main/java/com/skillkash/ge/beans/Skbean.java D:/dev/sk_ws/ge-parent/ge-core/src/main/java/com/skillkash/ge/beans/SkBean.java
    Path is not a working copy directory
svn: Path 'D:\dev\sk_ws\ge-parent\ge-core\src\main\java\com\skillkash\ge\beans\SkBean.java' is not a directory

Now the SVN URL is:

svn://qnap/share/MD0_DATA/svn/sk/ge-core/trunk

and the repository root is:

svn://qnap/share/MD0_DATA/svn/sk

Obviously just sharing the project then trying to move a file using subclipe does not work - it must be a bug. I have to do all my refactoring outside eclipse, and hand edit all the files which are affected.

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Feb 12 '16 at 17:37

I had added a png file to my project, but I got this error trying to rename or delete it. Cleaning and refreshing the project didn't do anything.

I went into the svn Team Synchronizing perspective, right clicked on the file and deleted it. That solved my problem.

Immortal Code · Answer 14 · 2020-01-24T21:05:59.023

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Right click on the project and select Teams -> Switch to another Branch/Tag/Revision.
Select the appropriate Branch/Tag/Revision that the project should be tied to and click OK.
Give Eclipse some time to process the changes.
Restart Eclipse for the changes to take affect.

edited Jan 24 '20 at 21:05

answered Jan 24 '20 at 20:36

Immortal Code

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Dec 28 '20 at 07:19

I just got this error when I was trying to update some .java files. The problem was I was trying to update the files but the folder that contains that files didn't exist in the path so when I sync and update the folder it works at the first try.

So, dont try to sync files, try to sync the folder.

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Sep 12 '11 at 06:24

0

Right click the project folder : Team -> Update to Head

This will bring back the directory. Delete it again and Commit

answered Sep 12 '11 at 06:24

Saad Farooq

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Does that work? My goal is to move the directory on my local filesystem without changing anything whatsoever in SVN. – David Moles Sep 12 '11 at 21:23
Im trying to use Show History, and getting this error. Tried Update to Head and then Show History (Still did not work) – Kairan Jan 06 '15 at 18:38

score -1 · Answer 17 · answered Sep 15 '09 at 08:53

-1

Sometime ago I had a similar issue. Seems that Subclipse (or Eclipse) stores the absolute path of your working copies. The cleanest solution is to export again your repository to the new path.

If you have non-committed code, then you can copy it on top of the clean export (without the .svn folder)

answered Sep 15 '09 at 08:53

Carlos Tasada

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Tried update to head, the update worked but the other features like Show History still did not work – Kairan Jan 06 '15 at 18:37

score -1 · Answer 18 · answered Feb 12 '14 at 18:53

I too had this issue and I simply deleted the project from the workspace (leaving the files on the files system in tact).

I then imported an svn project into the workspace.

Import->SVN->Checkout Project From SVN.

I used my existing repository location to pull the files in.

This issue was caused when I changed Eclipse editions and used a Subclipse plug-in that was a version ahead of what I should have used.

I uninstalled the newer version and installed the correct older version and all worked well.

Subclipse complains "Path is not a working copy" after moving workspace

18 Answers18