Hello, When file external is modified in the working copy, then creating a branch or tag copies original file to the tag or branch (as well as svn:externals property). This results in a new directory that can't be checked out.
Please find reproduction script attached. -- Alexander Kitaev, TMate Software, http://svnkit.com/ - Java [Sub]Versioning Library! http://sqljet.com/ - Java SQLite Library!
#!/bin/sh # The next line is the only line you should need to adjust. SVNDIR=/home/builder/usr/svn-166/bin SVN=${SVNDIR}/svn SVNSERVE=${SVNDIR}/svnserve SVNADMIN=${SVNDIR}/svnadmin URL=file:///`pwd`/repos rm -rf repos wc branch-wc import-me ${SVNADMIN} create repos echo "### Making a Greek Tree for import..." mkdir import-me mkdir import-me/dir touch import-me/dir/file.txt (cd import-me; ${SVN} import -q -m "Initial import." ${URL}) echo "### Checking out WC..." ${SVN} co ${URL} wc echo "### Setting svn:externals property..." ${SVN} ps svn:externals "external.txt ${URL}/dir/file.txt" wc/dir ${SVN} ci wc -m "external property set" echo "### Update working copy..." ${SVN} up wc echo "### Copy from wc to create a branch (revision 3)..." ${SVN} cp --parents wc/dir ${URL}/branch -m "branch created" echo "### Check out branch, note that externals fails..." ${SVN} co ${URL}/branch branch-wc echo "### Copy (revision 3) log:" ${SVN} log -v -r3 ${URL}