Difference between checkout and export in SVN

svn export simply extracts all the files from a revision and does not allow revision control on it. It also does not litter each directory with .svn directories.

svn checkout allows you to use version control in the directory made, e.g. your standard commands such as svn update and svn commit.

As you stated, a checkout includes the .svn directories. Thus it is a working copy and will have the proper information to make commits back (if you have permission). If you do an export you are just taking a copy of the current state of the repository and will not have any way to commit back any changes.

Are you re-running your checkout or export into an existing directory?

Because if you are, checkout will update the working copy, including deleting any files.

But export will simply transfer all the files from the reporsitory to the destination - if the destination is the same directory, this means any files deleted in the repository will NOT be deleted.

So you export copy may only work because it is relying on a file which has been deleted in the repository?

Any chance the build process is looking into the subdirectories and including something it shouldn't? BTW, you can do a legal checkout, then remove the .svn and all it contains. That should give you the same as an export. Try compiling that, before and after removing the metadata, as it were.