How to upgrade a 1.4.3 TortoiseSVN-created repository to 1.6.x?
- by SiegeX
A few years ago, TortoiseSVN 1.4.3 was deployed to our software development team and we are now looking at upgrading the client to the latest 1.6.x version. I had hoped this upgrade would be transparent with the additional features and modifications being client-side. For the most part, this was true except for a very important feature -- merging. When I try to merge a feature branch back into truck I get a show-stopping "Merge tracking not supported error."
Here are some facts worth noting:
When the repo was first created (before I was on board), it was created via the TortoiseSVN client itself. We do not have a 'svn server daemon' per se, rather the repository folders/database resides on a share folder that is accessible from our workstation machines via file:///. This was actually an eye opener for me, I had always thought there was some SVN server daemon we were talking to.
We do not have any access to the underlying machine hosting the SVN share other than the ability to read/write to the share itself. I don't even know what OS the machine is running on. This share server was chosen because its drives are backed up nightly by our IT group.
In all honesty, we really don't need the merge tracking feature although it would be nice to have. For the time being it would be sufficient to be able to use a 1.6.x TortoiseSVN client on the 1.4.3 repository and have it merge (sans tracking) without error.
So now the question becomes, how does one upgrade a client-created 1.4.3 repo to a 1.6.x compatible version without access to the underlying machine the repo resides on? I was hoping the TortoiseSVN client itself had the ability to do this but that does not appear to be the case.
Will I be forced to copy the entire repo over to my local drive, run some svn commands to upgrade the repo locally then copy the repo back to the share point? If so, will doing this break any compatibility with the the 1.4.3 clients in case we cant upgrade them all at the same time?
Thanks for the help.
