Correct but Scary Error: "Not a branch" when parent branch of checkout cannot be resolved

[Martitza]

This was done with Windows networked volumes and bzr checkouts. The behavior may be more general however.

I have a branch "trunk" on a machine called "server".
I create a checkout of "trunk" called "work" on a machine called "client".
At some point, "server" goes off the network.
So on "client" I get the following:

C:\Users\martitzam\Desktop\Project\work> bzr stat
bzr: ERROR: Not a branch: "//server/c/SourceControl/Project/trunk".

That message is technically correct. (In the sense that all statements about the empty set are true.) I don't expect bzr to figure out exactly *why* the URL does not resolve to a valid branch. But the message scares some folks, and I admit it took me a moment to realize what was going on. I propose that rather than making the strong statement "Not a branch" the message could say "Branch not found at location ... If you expected a branch to be found, verify that it is accessible to bazaar." or something like that.

Note that Bazaar Explorer seems to handle this very gracefully. It also gives a "not a branch" message, but it also displays my shortcut to the branch as a folder with a magnifying glass which (I realize now) implies that bzr explorer looked but could not find the branch.