diff --git a/mercurial/subrepo.py b/mercurial/subrepo.py
--- a/mercurial/subrepo.py
+++ b/mercurial/subrepo.py
@@ -726,6 +726,12 @@ class svnsubrepo(abstractsubrepo):
         self._ui.status(commitinfo)
         newrev = re.search('Committed revision ([0-9]+).', commitinfo)
         if not newrev:
+            if not commitinfo.strip():
+                # Sometimes, our definition of "changed" differs from
+                # svn one. For instance, svn ignores missing files
+                # when committing. If there are only missing files, no
+                # commit is made, no output and no error code.
+                raise util.Abort(_('failed to commit svn changes'))
             raise util.Abort(commitinfo.splitlines()[-1])
         newrev = newrev.groups()[0]
         self._ui.status(self._svncommand(['update', '-r', newrev])[0])
diff --git a/tests/test-subrepo-svn.t b/tests/test-subrepo-svn.t
--- a/tests/test-subrepo-svn.t
+++ b/tests/test-subrepo-svn.t
@@ -120,6 +120,15 @@ change file in svn and hg, commit
    source   file://*/svn-repo/src (glob)
    revision 2
 
+missing svn file, commit should fail
+
+  $ rm s/alpha
+  $ hg commit --subrepos -m 'abort on missing file'
+  committing subrepository s
+  abort: failed to commit svn changes
+  [255]
+  $ svn revert s/alpha > /dev/null
+
 add an unrelated revision in svn and update the subrepo to without
 bringing any changes.