SVN Fix: Could not use external editor to fetch log message

In case you encounter the following error using SVN — on my Mac, for me:

svn: E205007: Could not use external editor to fetch log message; consider setting the $SVN_EDITOR environment variable or using the –message (-m) or –file (-F) options
svn: E205007: None of the environment variables SVN_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR are set, and no ‘editor-cmd’ run-time configuration option was found

 Just run the following in your terminal and all will be good:

export SVN_EDITOR=vim   

Note: You can use "nano" or whatever editor you’d like.

2 thoughts on “SVN Fix: Could not use external editor to fetch log message”

  1. In my case I had the following error:

    svn: E205007: None of the environment variables SVN_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR are set, and no ‘editor-cmd’ run-time configuration option was found

    When running:

    svn propedit svn:externals .

    but I managed to fix it with your suggestion, thx a lot!

  2. For me it din’t worked at all. So i have choosen one of the options sugested by svn server itself. -f ./log To redirect output to a log file in my working directory.

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