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

Sudatorium

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

Atonal

I created the repository using the command line, and my TortoiseSVN is version 1.6. Well, I'll just update my Subversion installation to 1.6 then? – Sudatorium

I installed my Subversion by extracting binaries. To uninstall it, do I just delete the folders where I extracted it? I'm going to install Collabnet – Sudatorium

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

Cota

Answer 3

I delete my old repository and create a new one using command line -> svnadmin create C:\SvnRepository

*old repository was created by right clicking on the folder and click "Create Repository here"

Kylakylah

Answer 4

I installed (the Collabnet install of) SVN 1.5.5 and it was running fine with TortoiseSVN 1.6.1. After upgrading SVN to 1.6.2 I'm getting the same error (Expected fs format between ‘1’ and ‘3’; found format ‘4’) when I try to access it through Trac. This lends credibility to Blair's answer. I'll let you know how I get it running again.

Update: Blair's answer worked for me, too: the message says that an old version of SVN is trying to access the repository, so find it and delete it. The specifics for me were that the error only occurred when I used Trac, so I re-installed Trac on Windows (http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracOnWindows) with the latest installer I could find (svn-python-1.6.1.win32-py2.5.exe) and deleted old eggs from the Python site-packages folder. After a reboot and resync, I was up and running again.

Steamboat

Answer 5

The latest version of Zend Studio (8.x) has an SVN tool which gives the same error about finding format 4, but expecting format 1-3. I had created my repository using CollabNet SVN (about a year ago) and was unable to open the repository from within Zend Studio.

I think the best solution (at least for my case where I want to work with Zend Studio and not fight with it) is to recreate your repository with the old version of SVN. The URL for SVN 1.3 for Windows is:

http://subversion.tigris.org/files/documents/15/32856/svn-1.3.2-setup.exe

After installing this, make sure you are executing the svnadmin.exe and svn.exe in the newly installed version 1.3 directory in case you have already installed CollabNet SVN (which has a default install directory of c:/csvn).

Canzone

Answer 6

Make sure you are using the correct svnadmin. For example, if you installed VisualSVN, you will need to use the svnadmin located in the bin folder of the installation directory. I had installed the command line version of SVN...and when I used this version of the svnadmin tool, I got the same error.

Rhinestone

Answer 7

Thanks, Joe. I had both CollabNet SVN server and VisualSVN installed and was getting errors until I made sure I was using the version of svnadmin that came with VisualSVN (which I had used to create the repositories).

Orgeat

Answer 8

I was able to fix this by updating Subversion on the server. I also made the adjustment on the db file. Then I pushed everything backup onto the server as an overwrite. I actually (on windows) did a checkout locally, then the files that were generated in creating that repo, I edited the db, then grabbed all files and pushed them up to SVN on the server.

That seemed to have done the trick.

Plod

Answer 9

well i have also faced the same problem. just open your svn remote folder you have made. in your db folder you have format file. just replace the no. with 1. if it does not work try 2, and 3.

Domicile

Answer 10

If you are using VisualSVN server, Make sure your command looks similar as below

Sample Command: C:\Program Files\VisualSVN Server\bin>svnadmin dump c:\repo > c:\backup\svnbacku p.dump

Dubuffet