Why am I getting "svn: connection refused by the server"?

Question

We have a Continuous Integration environment setup with TeamCity and subversion. TeamCity gets the latest source from svn and does a build (Visual Studio) on every commit.

Sometimes we get the following TeamCity error when the build runs. Doing a couple of force builds gets TeamCity running succesfully.

**Build errors
[12:35:24]: Patch is broken, can be found in file: C:\TeamCity\buildAgent\temp\cache\temp6036patch_803[12:35:24]: RunBuildException when running build stage UpdateSourcesFromServer: Failed to build patch for build 519 {build id=803}, VCS root: svn: https://svn.myDomain.com/repos/myApplication {id=2}, due to error: org.tmatesoft.svn.core.SVNException: svn: connection refused by the server
svn: REPORT request failed on '/repos/myApplication/!svn/vcc/default'**

Any ideas why this might be happening ?

Here is part of the build log

[12:58:39]:  [Updating sources: server side checkout...] Transferring cached clean patch for VCS root: [svn url]
[12:58:40]:  [Updating sources: server side checkout...] Building incremental patch over the cached patch
[12:59:30]:  [Updating sources: server side checkout...] Failed to build patch for build 146 {build id=806}, VCS root: svn: [svn url]{id=2}, due to error: org.tmatesoft.svn.core.SVNException: svn: connection refused by the server
svn: REPORT request failed on '[svn url]!svn/vcc/default'
[12:59:30]:  [Updating sources: server side checkout...] Repository sources transferred: 14.08Mb total
[12:59:30]:  [Updating sources: server side checkout...] Average transfer speed: 280.89Kb per second
[12:59:30]: Will repeat attempt when server will be available, number of attempts left: 2
[12:59:40]: Updating sources: server side checkout...


jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl$1: Server was not able to build correct patch, most likely due to VCS errors, will try again.
jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl$1: Server was not able to build correct patch, most likely due to VCS errors, will try again.
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl.throwError(PatchDownloaderImpl.java:113)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl.checkPatch(PatchDownloaderImpl.java:103)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl.copyPatchAndCheck(PatchDownloaderImpl.java:64)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.UpdateSourcesPatcherBase.copyPatchToTempFile(UpdateSourcesPatcherBase.java:65)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.UpdateSourcesFromServer.updateSources(UpdateSourcesFromServer.java:58)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.UpdateSourcesBuildStageBase.doSourceUpdate(UpdateSourcesBuildStageBase.java:74)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.UpdateSourcesBuildStageBase.doRecoverableStage(UpdateSourcesBuildStageBase.java:52)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.runStages.RecoverableBuildStage.doLastAttempt(RecoverableBuildStage.java:101)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.runStages.RecoverableBuildStage.doBuildStage(RecoverableBuildStage.java:58)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.BuildRunAction.callRunStage(BuildRunAction.java:119)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.BuildRunAction.doStages(BuildRunAction.java:83)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.BuildRunAction.access$000(BuildRunAction.java:18)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.BuildRunAction$1.run(BuildRunAction.java:56)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
Caused by: jetbrains.buildServer.vcs.patches.UnsuccessfulPatchException: Failed to build patch for build 146 {build id=806}, VCS root: svn: [svn url]{id=2}, due to error: org.tmatesoft.svn.core.SVNException: svn: connection refused by the server
svn: REPORT request failed on '[svn url]!svn/vcc/default'
    at jetbrains.buildServer.vcs.patches.AbstractPatcher$1.fail(AbstractPatcher.java:93)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.vcs.patches.LowLevelPatcher.readPatchStream(LowLevelPatcher.java:156)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.vcs.patches.LowLevelPatcher.applyPatch(LowLevelPatcher.java:79)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.vcs.patches.AbstractPatcher.applyPatch(AbstractPatcher.java:42)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchApplierImpl.applyPatch(PatchApplierImpl.java:18)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl.checkPatchInFileIsCompleted(PatchDownloaderImpl.java:83)
    at jetbrains.buildServer.agent.impl.patch.PatchDownloaderImpl.checkPatch(PatchDownloaderImpl.java:93)
    ... 12 more

Answer 1

From the error, it looks like that either svn server was either unavailable or overloaded. Also, if you're using svn:externals which point to the same repository, I strongly suggest trying TeamCity 5.1 RC - there were a bunch of fixes related to svn support + optimization in this area. Also, it is a good idea to post your questions to TeamCity forum here.