Strange problem with Subversion – “File already exists” when trying to recreate a directory that USED to be in my repository

I had a problem like this when I deleted a folder (and sub-folders) and went to recreate them from scratch. You get this error from manually deleting and re-adding folders (whereas files seem to cope OK with this).

After some frustrating messing around, found I had to:

(using TortoiseSVN on Windows)

1. Move conflicting folders out of working copy (so that I don’t lose my work-in-progress)
2. Do an svn update which added old files/folders back into working copy
3. svn delete folder
4. commit
5. Copy new folder back into working copy (ensuring you delete all the .svn folders inside)
6. commit

Unfortunately it (A) requires two commits, and (B) loses file revision history as it only tracks back to the recent re-add (unless someone can explain how to fix this). An alternative solution that works around these 2 issues is to skip steps 3 and 4, the only problem being that old/unnecessary files may still be present in your directory. You could delete these manually.

Would love to hear any additional insights others might have on this.

Simon.

[Update] OK, I had this same problem again just then, but the offending folder was NOT in the last commit, so an update didn’t restore it. Instead I had to browse the repository and delete the offending folder. I could then add the folder back in and commit successfully.