If you are using Subversion and Maven, you might have experienced a message that looks something like: svn: File ‘/folder/pom.xml’ already exists, when executing the “mvn release:prepare” goal.
This has surely caused some frustration for us. After looking around we understood that the underlying bug is in Subversion while the Maven problem is reported here.
In the latter bug report, there is a suggestion for a workaround:
First, execute “mvn release:prepare”. When the error message appears, run “svn update” and then try again with “mvn release:prepare -Dresume”.
This has worked every time for us, but it has not ceased to feel like an ugly workaround.
Good luck!