Working copy XXX locked and cleanup failed in SVN

Question

I get this error when I do an svn update:

Working copy XXXXXXXX locked Please execute "Cleanup" command

When I run cleanup, I get

Cleanup failed to process the following paths: XXXXXXXX

How do I get out of this loop?

Answer 1

One approach would be to:

1. Copy edited items to another location.
2. Delete the folder containing the problem path.
3. Update the containing folder through Subversion.
4. Copy your files back or merge changes as needed.
5. Commit

Another option would be to delete the top level folder and check out again. Hopefully it doesn't come to that though.