I got into a similar situation (svn: ‘papers’ is not a working copy directory) a different way, so I thought I’d post my battle story (simplified): (This article is from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/374313/svn-error-not-a-working-copy) $ svn add papers svn: Can’t create directory ‘papers/.svn’: Permission denied Oops! fix permissions… then: $ svn add papers svn: warning: ‘papers’ is already…