Error "The server sent an improper HTTP response." on commit with Subversion 1.8+ client

apache http svn tortoisesvn ankhsvn
J0e3gan picture J0e3gan · Jul 2, 2014 · Viewed 9.4k times · Source

Recently I have been plagued by an error on committing to a single SVN repo using TortoiseSVN (1.8.7.25475) or AnkhSVN (2.5.12471.17):

Error running context: The server sent an improper HTTP response

Here is a screenshot of the error in TortoiseSVN:

TortoiseSVN 'Improper HTTP Response' Error

The pixels differ of course, but the error is the same in AnkhSVN.

This only seems to affect attempts to commit modifications, not additions or deletions; and I can commit mods to several other SVN repos on the same server just fine.

Since my teammates continue to commit mods to the repo in question and the issue has only struck my commits to that repo, I tried committing simple mods after a fresh checkout of the repo: a few one-mod-at-a-time commits worked, but then...same error.

I also searched for, reviewed, and tried some possible solutions (e.g. in a thread on the TortoiseSVN forums to which Stefan Küng replied) - a registry tweak (deleting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Tigris.org - after exporting it for backup of course), checking my global properties, and ensuring that I am not using a proxy. Same error.

Finally, I tried both repairing and downgrading TortoiseSVN. Same error.

Has anyone else encountered this error under similar circumstances and found a solution to it?

Note that some related search results mention tweaking httpd.conf or other aspects of the SVN server, but server tweaks seem inappropriate to me. Again, my teammates continue to commit mods to the same repo using the same version of TortoiseSVN, the same OS (Win 7 Pro 64-bit) etcetera. Maybe I have missed something on the server that could just happen to affect me, though.

Answer

bahrep picture bahrep · Jul 3, 2014

Upgrade your Subversion client to the latest version.

Outdated answer:

ON THE CLIENT MACHINE! Open %APPDATA%\Subversion\servers in a text editor and add the line http-bulk-updates = yes, save the file and see if it helps.

If it helps, you'd better configure Apache HTTP Server's httpd.conf with SVNAllowBulkUpdates prefer directive so that all Subversion 1.8 clients could connect without any errors.

If there are more than just you who get this error in your organization and adjusting server's configuration is still unacceptable, you can change the setting http-bulk-updates = yes via Windows Registry so adjusting this on all affected machines can be done via AD Group Policy.

Read more info in Apache Subversion 1.8 Release Notes.

P.S.: faulty network hardware / firewall / antivirus is still the root cause here. The above is just a workaround to revert to the behavior of Subversion 1.7 and older client with neon network library. BTW, I guess that the installed antivirus is NOD32 or BitDefender.

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