I thought I’d thoroughly read this article, but upon reading it again today, I noticed a key point I’d missed. If you can’t upgrade your SVN client, do a fresh checkout with the older client. I’m going to have to try this now…
This client is too old to work with working copy ‘XXX’
The full error message is:
This client is too old to work with working copy ‘.’; please get a newer Subversion client.You will get this error message once you have used a Subversion client linked with a higher Subversion version, and then try to execute a command with a Subversion client linked with an older version, e.g., you used an 1.4.x client on your working copy, and now you try an svn 1.3.x client on the same working copy.
The reason for this is that Subversion 1.4 and 1.5 upgrade the working copies transparently on every command. But once the working copy format is upgraded, older clients can’t access the working copy anymore because they don’t know the new format.
The only solution to ‘fix’ this is to upgrade whatever clien
via This client is too old to work with working copy ‘XXX’ | TortoiseSVN
Williamo's Blog 
It’s all very well and good to say upgrade the SVN client, but HOW. I have scoured teh web and teh tigris site and I can find no command that will upgrade my SVN client. I can update my repository only using TortoiseSVN. If I use my command line client to issue an ‘svn update’ I get the same error as this blog has posted. I need to know HOW TO UPGRADE IT.
Hi.
Thanks for the post. Found via Google when looking for a solution when I was having the same problem as you. Unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to do either a fresh checkout or upgrade my SVN client.
Eventually I worked out a solution using Rsync, listed it here in case it helps anyone:
http://www.robsearles.co.uk/2008/12/10/svn-client-is-too-old-to-work-with-working-copy-solution-using-rsync/
Many thanks again for the post, helped me get one step closer to solving the problem.
Cheers
Rob
this is very helpful ,thanks for your info
This helped me a lot. Thanks!
Who introduced this incompatibility? it’s not like there are any new features in SVN 1.7 Seems like a ploy by some company trying to productize SVN by locking in people but you’re more likely to screw up your repo and do a git-svn on an older copy.
to the people saying this post was helpful? wtf??