Re: Unexpected HTTP status 400 'Bad request'.

On 12/7/2015 2:56 PM, Chris Capon wrote:
> Hi.
> We are running a Subversion server using Apache2 2.4.17-3, modDAV, and
> Subversion 1.9.2-3+b1 (the latest Testing release) under Debian
> GNU/Linux. We use HTTPS for security along with client certificates.
> This server has been running for many years with the same configuration.
>
> A week or so ago, when trying to commit to ONE of the repositories on
> this server, from a long-time client Windows machine running
> TortoiseSVN 1.9.2, Build 26806, the commit failed with the error:
>
> Unexpected HTTP status 400 'Bad request' on .... {one of the files}
>
> Since then, we have not been able to commit anything to that
> repository. On a commit with about 6 files, it seems to fail on
> different files periodically. It isn't always the same file name in
> the error message.
>
> The thing is, we can still do commits to other repositories on the
> same server and folder tree without this error happening and even from
> the same Windows machine. So I don't think the communications
> themselves are the problem. There is no hardware firewall between the
> client and the server.
>
> To diagnose the problem, I tried to check out the repository on the
> subversion server itself to a local folder (hoping to eliminate the
> network as the problem). When I execute:
>
> svn checkout https://server/svn/repository/dev/trunk --username
> myself dev
>
> the checkout begins to download files then will randomly stop after
> about 10 files with this error:
>
> svn: E175013: Access to 'filename' forbidden.
>
> Repeating the experiment will cause it to fail at different files
> seemingly randomly. Trying to 'svn cleanup' and 'svn update' the
> partially checked out folder will give the same error after bringing
> down a few more files.
>
> I have made sure permissions are set correctly for the Apache user in
> the folder with the subversion repository.
>
> None of the log files under /var/log/apache2 seem to catch or record
> anything about the errors, nor is there anything in the subversion.log
> file in the same folder. I am not sure how to capture the cause of
> the error on the server side.
>
> Can anyone help me diagnose this problem?
>
> Thanks.
>
>

Have you verified that the repository on the server is not corrupt?
Perhaps the disk has a bad sector on the drive, and only that repository
is affected. Or maybe the hard drive itself is failing, and the other
repositories have simply been "lucky" so far.

# svnadmin verify /path/to/repository/root

-- 
     David Chapman      dcchapman_at_acm.org
     Chapman Consulting -- San Jose, CA
     Software Development Done Right.
     www.chapman-consulting-sj.com