(I originally reported this issue last year but nothing came of it.) A file which has been obstructed by changing it to a symbolic link prevents submitting unrelated changelists.
To repro, simply replace a file with a sym link of the same name, and then try to submit a changelist which does not include the obstructed file. Reproduced with SVN 1.6.4, 1.6.5, 1.6.6, 1.6.9, 1.6.13 (I didn't try others). Here is an unannotated list of commands which can serve as a script to repro the problem. Execute from within a pre-existing repo working copy. touch a.txt b.txt c.txt d.txt svn add a.txt b.txt c.txt d.txt svn commit -m "Add a, b, c, d" echo a >> a.txt echo b >> b.txt rm c.txt ln -s d.txt c.txt svn changelist cltest a.txt b.txt svn commit --changelist cltest Here is an annotated step-by-step repro: 1. Start with a couple modified files (a.txt & b.txt in this case): n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ ls -hl total 24K -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 4 Sep 15 04:24 a.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 4 Sep 15 04:24 b.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 2 Sep 15 04:31 c.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 2 Sep 15 04:31 d.txt n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ svn status M b.txt M a.txt 2. Obstruct a 3rd file (c.txt) by changing it to a symlink: n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ rm c.txt n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ ln -s d.txt c.txt n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ ls -hl total 20K -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 4 Sep 15 04:24 a.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 4 Sep 15 04:24 b.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 nick users 5 Sep 15 04:32 c.txt -> d.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 nick users 2 Sep 15 04:31 d.txt n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ svn status M b.txt ~ c.txt M a.txt 3. Place the modified files (a.txt & b.txt) in a changelist: n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ svn cl cltest a.txt b.txt Path 'a.txt' is now a member of changelist 'cltest'. Path 'b.txt' is now a member of changelist 'cltest'. n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ svn status ~ c.txt --- Changelist 'cltest': M b.txt M a.txt 4. Attempt to commit the changelist: n...@nimble ~/test_repo $ svn commit --changelist cltest svn: Commit failed (details follow): svn: Entry '/home/nick/test_repo/c.txt' has unexpectedly changed special status This failure is unexpected, since the obstructed file (c.txt) is not in the changelist being committed. I've confirmed that this behavior does not exist if the obstruction is caused by changing the file to a directory. If the file is obstructed w/ a directory, svn allows the unrelated changelist to be submitted. So I suspect this issue is due to obstructions which are caused by changing to a sym link. Nick