SVN Error: Expected fs format between '1' and '3'; found format '4'

Question

Here's what I did, I have installed svnserve as a service and I started it with the net start svn service command. I typed svn ls svn://localhost to test the service but it returned the error as stated in the title of this post.

I entered svn --version and svnserve --version on my computer to find out the version numbers and the client and the server version is the same, version 1.5.6. I'm guessing the error appears due to different versions of the server and the client.

When I start the server using svnserve --daemon --root command in cmd, The error still appears.

Why does the error appear? Thanks

Answer 1

Which Subverson tool did you use to create the repository? TortoiseSVN? Your TortoiseSVN may be newer, a 1.6.x release, then your 1.5 command line client and svnserve, so svnserve 1.5.x cannot serve a 1.6.x repository.

In my fsfs repository created with svnadmin 1.6.1, the db/format file contains

$ cat repos/db/format 
4
layout sharded 1000

Answer 2

I have the same problem but I had resolve it with a different approach

The issue mainly is the db/format file where it expects a "2" best way to check is to ope the file

$ vi db/format 

If you get this

4
layout sharded 1000

Then you should change them to say

2

Its better to also check you current file

$ vi db/current

It you get only this (e.g. 0 meaning reviosion number 0)

0

Then you should change them to just say (e.g. 0 meaning revision number append "nx" and also "2" )

0 nx 2

Finally Check also if your directory structure for the revs and revprops is sharded or looks something like this

db/revs/0/0

change it to a non folder structure

db/revs/0

Note: the revision file (e.g. 0) is just inside the revs directory, no more other folder should be there

Same goes with revprops change

db/revprops/0/0

to

db/revprops/0