I created a tag on the HEAD.
I branched the project from the tag
I updated to the branch tag
My colleague updated some files on the HEAD
I tried to merge the changes from the HEAD to my branch, but being  cautious I used the "-n" option to supress the actual changes from being implemented.  The command failed indicating  "No such file or directory".
Running the same command for "real" worked fine.

I am running on Linux RHEL 3

>cvs --version

Concurrent Versions System (CVS) 1.11.2 (client/server)

Copyright (c) 1989-2001 Brian Berliner, david d `zoo' zuhn,
                        Jeff Polk, and other authors

CVS may be copied only under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
a copy of which can be found with the CVS distribution kit.

Specify the --help option for further information about CVS


Both client and server are RHEL 3 with the same patch, but they are different hosts.

Here is the console output of my attempts:



(2302) mardi_gras>cvs stat cfg/core.cfg
===================================================================
File: core.cfg          Status: Up-to-date

   Working revision:    1.34
   Repository revision: 1.34    /W/cvs/cvsroot/mardi_gras/cfg/core.cfg,v
   Sticky Tag:          intelligence_dev (branch: 1.34.2)
   Sticky Date:         (none)
   Sticky Options:      (none)

(2303) mardi_gras>cvs -nq up -j HEAD cfg/core.cfg
RCS file: /W/cvs/cvsroot/mardi_gras/cfg/core.cfg,v
retrieving revision 1.34
retrieving revision 1.35
Merging differences between 1.34 and 1.35 into core.cfg
cvs server: core.cfg: No such file or directory
(2304) mardi_gras>cvs -nq up -j intelligence_dev -j HEAD cfg/core.cfg
RCS file: /W/cvs/cvsroot/mardi_gras/cfg/core.cfg,v
retrieving revision 1.34
retrieving revision 1.35
Merging differences between 1.34 and 1.35 into core.cfg
cvs server: core.cfg: No such file or directory
(2305) mardi_gras>cvs stat cfg/core.cfg
===================================================================
File: core.cfg          Status: Up-to-date

   Working revision:    1.34
   Repository revision: 1.34    /W/cvs/cvsroot/mardi_gras/cfg/core.cfg,v
   Sticky Tag:          intelligence_dev (branch: 1.34.2)
   Sticky Date:         (none)
   Sticky Options:      (none)
(2306) mardi_gras>cvs -q up -j intelligence_dev -j HEAD cfg/core.cfg
RCS file: /W/cvs/cvsroot/mardi_gras/cfg/core.cfg,v
retrieving revision 1.34
retrieving revision 1.35
Merging differences between 1.34 and 1.35 into core.cfg