TortoiseSVN works but command line svn doesn't work?

Question

I use TortoiseSVN normally and it works fine. Whenever I try to use SVN from the command line I get an

c:\code\MyProject> svn status
svn: '.' is not a working copy 

error even though it's the same directory that I usually work with using TortoiseSVN.

What is the solution to this problem?

Answer 1

Check that both TortoiseSVN and SVN are the same client versions. In Windows Explorer, do Right Click -> TortoiseSVN -> About. Your version information will look like this:

TortoiseSVN 1.6.5, Build 16974 - 32 Bit , 2009/08/20 08:13:46
Subversion 1.6.5,
apr 1.3.8
apr-utils 1.3.9
neon 0.28.6
OpenSSL 0.9.8k 25 Mar 2009
zlib 1.2.3

So mine is client version "Subversion 1.6.5". From the command line do:

svn --version

You'll get something like this:

svn, version 1.6.4 (r38063)
compiled Aug  5 2009, 12:42:52

Copyright (C) 2000-2009 CollabNet.</pre>

Small version differences are usually OK. Big differences are likely to cause a problem.

The other thing to check is that you are storing SVN information in ".svn" directories for both versions. TortoiseSVN lets you change to use "_svn" instead of ".svn" (in Tortoise SVN -> Settings -> General). This may cause you a problem.