This is a generic response when trying to connect to a pserver server which chooses not to provide a specific reason for denying authorization. Check that the username and password specified are correct and that the CVSROOT specified is allowed by --allow-root in inetd.conf. See Password authenticated.

The exact format of this message may vary depending on your system. It indicates a bug in CVS, which can be handled as described in BUGS.

This message indicates that you removed a file, and someone else modified it. To resolve the conflict, first run `cvs add file'. If desired, look at the other party's modification to decide whether you still want to remove it. If you don't want to remove it, stop here. If you do want to remove it, proceed with `cvs remove file' and commit your removal.

Operation not permitted

This message has been happening in a non-reproducible, occasional way when we run the client/server testsuite, both on Red Hat Linux 3.0.3 and 4.1. We haven't been able to figure out what causes it, nor is it known whether it is specific to linux (or even to this particular machine!). If the problem does occur on other unices, `Operation not permitted' would be likely to read `Not owner' or whatever the system in question uses for the unix EPERM error. If you have any information to add, please let us know as described in BUGS. If you experience this error while using CVS, retrying the operation which produced it should work fine.

This generally indicates a CVS internal error, and can be handled as with other CVS bugs (see BUGS). Usually there is a workaround---the exact nature of which would depend on the situation but which hopefully could be figured out.

This message is harmless. Provided it is not accompanied by other errors, the operation has completed successfully. This message should not occur with current versions of CVS, but it is documented here for the benefit of CVS 1.9 and older.

This message has been reported as intermittently happening with CVS 1.9 on Solaris 2.5. The cause is unknown; if you know more about what causes it, let us know as described in BUGS.

This, unfortunately, is a rather nonspecific error message which CVS 1.9 will print if you are running the CVS client and it is having trouble connecting to the server. Current versions of CVS should print a much more specific error message. If you get this message when you didn't mean to run the client at all, you probably forgot to specify :local:, as described in Repository.

CVS 1.9 and older will print this message when trying to check in a binary file if RCS is not correctly installed. Re-read the instructions that came with your RCS distribution and the INSTALL file in the CVS distribution. Alternately, upgrade to a current version of CVS, which checks in files itself rather than via RCS.

With CVS 1.9, this can mean that the co program (part of RCS) returned a failure. It should be preceded by another error message, however it has been observed without another error message and the cause is not well-understood. With the current version of CVS, which does not run co, if this message occurs without another error message, it is definitely a CVS bug (see BUGS).

This means that you need to set the environment variables that CVS uses to locate your home directory. See the discussion of HOME, HOMEDRIVE, and HOMEPATH in Environment variables.

CVS 1.9 and older will print this message if there was a problem finding the rcsmerge program. Make sure that it is in your PATH, or upgrade to a current version of CVS, which does not require an external rcsmerge program.

This means that there was a problem finding the patch program. Make sure that it is in your PATH. Note that despite appearances the message is not referring to whether it can find file. If both the client and the server are running a current version of CVS, then there is no need for an external patch program and you should not see this message. But if either client or server is running CVS 1.9, then you need patch.

This means that for whatever reason the client was unable to apply a patch that the server sent. The message is nothing to be concerned about, because inability to apply the patch only slows things down and has no effect on what CVS does.

There is a known bug in the server for CVS 1.9.18 and older which can cause this. For me, this was reproducible if I used the `-t' global option. It was fixed by Andy Piper's 14 Nov 1997 change to src/filesubr.c, if anyone is curious. If you see the message, you probably can just retry the operation which failed, or if you have discovered information concerning its cause, please let us know as described in BUGS.

The most common cause for this message is if you are using an external rsh program and it exited with an error. In this case the rsh program should have printed a message, which will appear before the above message. For more information on setting up a CVS client and server, see Remote repositories.

This means that your repository is set up for a version of CVS prior to CVS 1.8. When using CVS 1.8 or later, the above message will be preceded by

cvs commit: Rebuilding administrative file database

If you see both messages, the database is being rebuilt twice, which is unnecessary but harmless. If you wish to avoid the duplication, and you have no versions of CVS 1.7 or earlier in use, remove -i mkmodules every place it appears in your modules file. For more information on the modules file, see modules.

Typically this can happen if you created an RCS file with your username set to empty. CVS will, bogusly, create an illegal RCS file with no value for the author field. The solution is to make sure your username is set to a non-empty value and re-create the RCS file.

This typically means that there is a directory named CVS but it does not contain the administrative files which CVS puts in a CVS directory. If the problem is that you created a CVS directory via some mechanism other than CVS, then the answer is simple, use a name other than CVS. If not, it indicates a CVS bug (see BUGS).

This message will be followed by a usage message for RCS. It means that you have an old version of RCS (probably supplied with your operating system). CVS only works with RCS version 5 and later.

This message seems to be caused by a hard-to-track-down bug in CVS or the systems it runs on (we don't know---we haven't tracked it down yet!). It seems to happen only after a CVS command has completed, and you should be able to just ignore the message. However, if you have discovered information concerning its cause, please let us know as described in BUGS.

This message is typically printed by the `log.pl' script which is in the `contrib' directory in the CVS source distribution. In some versions of CVS, `log.pl' has been part of the default CVS installation. The `log.pl' script gets called from the `loginfo' administrative file. Check that the arguments passed in `loginfo' match what your version of `log.pl' expects. In particular, the `log.pl' from CVS 1.3 and older expects the logfile as an argument whereas the `log.pl' from CVS 1.5 and newer expects the logfile to be specified with a `-f' option. Of course, if you don't need `log.pl' you can just comment it out of `loginfo'.

This means that someone else has committed a change to that file since the last time that you did a cvs update. So before proceeding with your cvs commit you need to cvs update. CVS will merge the changes that you made and the changes that the other person made. If it does not detect any conflicts it will report `M cacErrCodes.h' and you are ready to cvs commit. If it detects conflicts it will print a message saying so, will report `C cacErrCodes.h', and you need to manually resolve the conflict. For more details on this process see Conflicts example.

Only one of [exEX3] allowed

This indicates a problem with the installation of diff3 and rcsmerge. Specifically rcsmerge was compiled to look for GNU diff3, but it is finding unix diff3 instead. The exact text of the message will vary depending on the system. The simplest solution is to upgrade to a current version of CVS, which does not rely on external rcsmerge or diff3 programs.

If text contains a valid response (such as `ok') followed by an extra carriage return character (on many systems this will cause the second part of the message to overwrite the first part), then it probably means that you are using the `:ext:' access method with a version of rsh, such as most non-unix rsh versions, which does not by default provide a transparent data stream. In such cases you probably want to try `:server:' instead of `:ext:'. If text is something else, this may signify a problem with your CVS server. Double-check your installation against the instructions for setting up the CVS server.

This means that the editor which CVS is using exits with a nonzero exit status. Some versions of vi will do this even when there was not a problem editing the file. If so, point the CVSEDITOR environment variable to a small script such as:

#!/bin/sh
vi $*
exit 0