Users cannot reliably view SVN log messages remotely

[Shaun Pinney <sh...@bil.konicaminolta.us>]

Hi all,

I've got a distant user who cannot reliably view the SVN log messages
Using TortoiseSVN.  If he 'refreshes', he can view the SVN log messages
fine.  Also, checkouts work fine.  Other users at his (distant) site
seem to have the same issue, but I can't reproduce the issue here and
haven't heard of similar issues from other sites.  We're using Apache,
and I did notice that the Apache logs occasionally shows the below errors
and wonder if there is a known explanation or solution:

Provider encountered an error while streaming a REPORT response.  [500, #0]
A failure occurred while driving the update report editor  [500, #103]
Error writing base64 data: Software caused connection abort  [500, #103]

I've checked the Subversion FAQ, and think the fix there does not apply
since my users are on Windows.  Does anyone know how to resolve these
errors?  I'm suspecting a network issue, so my next thing to try is to
increase the Apache timeout in httpd.conf.  My hunch is that this won't
solve the issue, so if anyone has additional ideas to try I'd really
appreciate it.

Thanks!
Shaun

RE: Users cannot reliably view SVN log messages remotely

[Shaun Pinney <sh...@bil.konicaminolta.us>]

I got past the issue and wanted to post my solution here for other SVN
admins/users.  HTH.

> I've got a distant user who cannot reliably view the SVN log messages
> Using TortoiseSVN.  If he 'refreshes', he can view the SVN log messages
> fine.  Also, checkouts work fine.  Other users at his (distant) site
> seem to have the same issue, but I can't reproduce the issue here and
> haven't heard of similar issues from other sites.

RE: Users cannot reliably view SVN log messages remotely

[Shaun Pinney <sh...@bil.konicaminolta.us>]

> I've checked the Subversion FAQ, and think the fix there does not apply
> since my users are on Windows.  Does anyone know how to resolve these

(...Sent this out too quickly... I meant to say:)
We're not serving from a MacOS X 10.4 machine, so I don't think the FAQ
applies here.

RE: Users cannot reliably view SVN log messages remotely

[Shaun Pinney <sh...@bil.konicaminolta.us>]

I got past the issue and wanted to post my solution here for other SVN
admins/users.  HTH.

> I've got a distant user who cannot reliably view the SVN log messages
> Using TortoiseSVN.  If he 'refreshes', he can view the SVN log messages
> fine.  Also, checkouts work fine.  Other users at his (distant) site
> seem to have the same issue, but I can't reproduce the issue here and
> haven't heard of similar issues from other sites.

>From inspecting the Apache logs, I found that the user's client was in an
invalid state.  Somehow it was sending the server requests for revisions
that did not modify any files in the selected directory.  For example, 
Revision 2688 does not exist on Path/To/Directory, but this was in the 
access_log:

"REPORT /svn/<RepoName>/!svn/bc/2688/Path/To/Directory HTTP/1.1" 404 247

His TSVN client was also displaying revision 2689 in the Show Log windows.
After asking the user to disable log caching and clear his saved data he
was able to view the log messages again without clicking 'refresh' and the
invalid revision 2689 disappeared from his TSVN window.

> Provider encountered an error while streaming a REPORT response.  [500, #0]
> A failure occurred while driving the update report editor  [500, #103]
> Error writing base64 data: Software caused connection abort  [500, #103]

As for these other error messages, I'm still not sure the reason but there's
no pressing need to investigate at the moment.  If I find a solution later
I'll make sure to post it here for everyone.

Best,
Shaun