Fix: TortoiseHg not commiting files

It seems that sometimes TortoiseHg Mercurial (Hg) client on Windows fails to remove a 0-byte-sized file named “wlock” (a write lock to avoid simultaneous write to a local repository) in the “.hg” subfolder that holds a local repository.

This results in the Commit dialog never commiting changed/removed/added files and you have to press Close there and confirm cancelation of the commit action. After trying multiple times and even rebooting I realized that deleting that “wlock” file fixed the issue and could then open up TortoiseHg commit dialog again to retry the commit action (luckily it remembers the commit message from the last effort, you just have to select which files to commit again.

The default seems to be to commit only modified files, thus if files have been removed or added you have to select them. Note that selecting the 3-state checkbox at the top selects/deselects all files quickly.

Then you can proceed from the “Hg Workbench” dialog (available when you right click in Windows Explorer the folder name that contains the “.hg” subfolder) to sync the local changes with any external repository you’re using. Hg is a distributed version control, unlike other centralized ones, so you can commit even without a network connection available, since it is commiting to the local repository.