phacility/phabricator · error · Exception

This repository ("%s") is not a Subversion repository. Use "

Error message

This repository ("%s") is not a Subversion repository. Use "%s" to interact with this repository.

What it means

raiseWrongVCSException() is the SVN workflow's mismatch message: loadRepositoryWithPath() with REPOSITORY_TYPE_SVN matched a repository, but it is Git or Mercurial. The text names the repository and its actual version control system so the caller knows which client to use instead.

Source

Thrown at src/applications/diffusion/ssh/DiffusionSubversionServeSSHWorkflow.php:457

    if (strncmp($uri, $internal, strlen($internal)) === 0) {
      $uri = $external.substr($uri, strlen($internal));
    }

    return $uri;
  }

  private function normalizeSVNPath($path) {
    // Subversion normalizes redundant slashes internally, so normalize them
    // here as well to make sure things match up.
    $path = preg_replace('(/+)', '/', $path);

    return $path;
  }

  protected function raiseWrongVCSException(
    PhabricatorRepository $repository) {
    throw new Exception(
      pht(
        'This repository ("%s") is not a Subversion repository. Use "%s" to '.
        'interact with this repository.',
        $repository->getDisplayName(),
        $repository->getVersionControlSystem()));
  }

}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5720a38cfe)

Solutions

1. Interact with the repository using the client matching its real VCS (git/hg URIs from the repository page)
2. If the repository itself was miscreated, re-create it with the correct VCS type (VCS cannot be changed in place)
3. Retire stale client-side checkouts that still point at the old layout

if (!$repository->isSVN()) {
  // route to the git/hg workflow instead of svnserve
}

function isSVNRepository(PhabricatorRepository $repository) {
  return $repository->isSVN();
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running svn against a repository hosted as Git or Mercurial - usually because the svn+ssh URL path maps to that repository; or the repository was created with the wrong VCS type.

Common situations: Copy-pasting the wrong clone URI; repositories migrated from SVN to Git while old checkouts persist; an admin picked the wrong VCS when creating the repository.

Related errors

• This repository is read-only over SSH.
• %s subprocess exited before emitting a protocol frame.
• Client transmitted more than 1MB of data without transmittin
• Client closed connection before sending a complete protocol
• Client closed connection before receiving response.

AI-assisted analysis of phacility/phabricator@5720a38cfe (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9cf20c07a3386ef9. Report an issue: GitHub.