Using git 1.6.4.2, when I tried a git pull I get this error:
error: unable to resolve reference refs/remotes/origin/LT558-optimize-sql: No such file or directory
From git+ssh://remoteserver/~/misk5
! [new branch] LT558-optimize-sql -> origin/LT558-optimize-sql (unable to update local ref)
error: unable to resolve reference refs/remotes/origin/split-css: No such file or directory
! [new branch] split-css -> origin/split-css (unable to update local ref)
I've tried git remote prune origin, but it didn't help.
Try cleaning-up your local repository with:
$ git gc --prune=now
$ git remote prune origin
man git-gc(1):
git-gc - Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize the local repository
git gc [--aggressive] [--auto] [--quiet] [--prune=<date> | --no-prune]
Runs a number of housekeeping tasks within the current repository, such as compressing file revisions
(to reduce disk space and increase performance) and removing unreachable objects which may have been
created from prior invocations of git add.
Users are encouraged to run this task on a regular basis within each repository to maintain good disk
space utilization and good operating performance.
man git-remote(1):
git-remote - manage set of tracked repositories
git remote prune [-n | --dry-run] <name>
Deletes all stale remote-tracking branches under <name>. These stale branches have already been
removed from the remote repository referenced by <name>, but are still locally available in
"remotes/<name>".
Happened to me as well. In my case, the bad ref was master, and I did the following:
rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master
git fetch
This made git restore the ref file. After that everything worked as expected again.
This did the job for me:
git gc --prune=now
For me, it worked to remove the files that are throwing errors from the folder .git/refs/remotes/origin/.
I just would like to add one of the possible causes of a broken Git reference.
Possible root cause
On my system (Windows 7 64-bit), when a BSOD happens, some of the stored reference files (most likely currently opened/being written into when the BSOD happened) are overwritten with NULL characters (ASCII 0).
As others mentioned, to fix it, it's enough to just delete those invalid reference files and re-fetch or re-pull the repository.
Example
Error message:
cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/some/branch': unable to resolve reference 'refs/remotes/origin/some/branch': reference broken
Solution:
Delete the reference refs/remotes/origin/some/branch which is stored in the file %repo_root%/.git/refs/remotes/origin/some/branch.
Go to under flutter folder and then,
Try it:
git gc --prune=now
git remote prune origin
git pull
Explanation: It appears your remote repo (in GitHub / BitBucket) branches were removed ,though your local references were not updated and pointing to non existent references.
In order to solve this issue:
git fetch --prune
git fetch --all
git pull
For extra reading - Reference from Git documentation :
git-fetch - Download objects and refs from another repository
--all
Fetch all remotes.
--prune After fetching, remove any remote tracking branches which no longer exist on the remote.
Execute the following commands:
rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master
git fetch
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/master
Just in case, if you need to know what is
.git/refs/remotes/origin/master, you would read the Remotes section
in Git References.
In my case, the problem was solved after I've deleted all the remove reference files under the directory .git.
If you look at the message, it would tell you which files you need to delete (specifically).
The files to delete sit under .git/refs/remotes.
I've just deleted all the files there, and ran gc prune
git gc --prune=now
After that, everything works just fine.
git fetch --prune fixed this error for me:
[marc.zych#marc-desktop] - [~/code/driving] - [Wed May 10, 02:58:25]
[I]> git fetch
error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/user/janek/integration/20170505': 'refs/remotes/origin/user/janek/integration' exists; cannot create 'refs/remotes/origin/user/janek/integration/20170505'
From github.com:zooxco/driving
! [new branch] user/janek/integration/20170505 -> origin/user/janek/integration/20170505 (unable to update local ref)
From github.com:zooxco/driving
[marc.zych#marc-desktop] - [~/code/driving] - [Wed May 10, 02:58:30]
[I]> git fetch --prune
- [deleted] (none) -> origin/user/janek/integration
This assumes that the offending branch was deleted on the remote, though.
You can also add this to ~/.gitconfig to automatically prune when running git fetch:
[fetch]
prune = true
I had this same issue and solved it by going to the file it was erroring on:
\repo\.git\refs\remotes\origin\master
This file was full of nulls, I replaced it with the latest ref from github.
If this error “unable to update local ref” is reoccurring, even after applying either the answer by Vojtech Vitek or Michel Krämer you may you may have a bad ref on your local AND master repository.
In this case you should apply both fix's without pulling or pushing in between ...
rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master
git fetch
git gc --prune=now
git remote prune origin
A permanent resolution for me was only achieved after applying both fix's before push/pull.
For me, I solved it this way:
rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master
git fetch
After that I get this message from github.
There is no tracking information for the current branch
So next I did to fix this was:
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/master master
git pull
To Answer this in very short, this issue comes when your local has some information about the remote and someone changes something which makes remote and your changes unsync.
I was getting this issue because someone has deleted remote branch and again created with the same name.
For dealing with such issues, do a pull or fetch from remote.
git remote prune origin
or if you are using any GUI, do a fetch from remote.
Try this:
git pull origin Branch_Name
Branch_Name, the branch which you are currently on.
If you do only a git pull, it pulls all other created branch name as well.
So is the reason you are getting this:
! [new branch] split-css -> origin/split-css (unable to update local ref)
I was able to work with
git remote update --prune
$ rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master
$ git fetch
From bitbucket.org:xx/mkyong-tutorials
df0eee8..3f7af90 master -> origin/master
$ git pull
Already up to date.
Error: cannot lock ref" simply means information in /refs are corrupted and Git cannot continue to create index.lock file.
Quick fix : Remove and re-add remote.
1- Copy the SSH git URL of your existing remote. You can print it to the terminal using this command:
git remote -v
2- Remove the remote from your local git repo:
git remote rm origin
3- Add the remote back to your local repo:
git remote add origin git#server-address.org:your-username/repo-name.git
4- Prune remote origin
Users across online forums have reported that the command below worked for them:
git remote prune origin
5- Clean up and optimize local repository
git gc --prune=now
You can find more info on this article:
https://linuxpip.org/git-error-cannot-lock-ref/
delete file for particular branch manually from your project
.git/refs/remotes/origin/master
git gc --prune=now
git pull
For me, I had a local branch named feature/phase2 and the remote branch was named feature/phase2/data-model. The naming conflict was the cause of the problem, so I deleted my local branch (you could rename it if it had anything you needed to keep)
If git gc --prune=now dosen't help you. (bad luck like me)
What I did is remove the project in local, and re clone the whole project again.
I'm using Tower and for some reason my folder name was .git/refs/remotes/origin/Github. Changing it to lowercase .git/refs/remotes/origin/github solved the issue.
When it is caused by Google Drive desktop.ini files
Google Drive client for Windows creates desktop.ini files in each folder. If your git repository is in a directory that is being synced with Google Drive, then the desktop.ini files will cause the git repository to fail with something like:
cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/desktop.ini': unable to resolve reference 'refs/remotes/origin/desktop.ini': reference broken
To solve this error you might want to delete the desktop.ini files in your git repository.
If you have WSL setup, then you can use the following command to delete the desktop.ini files:
Note: ⚠️ This command will delete all desktop.ini files in all .git directories in your <project_directory>.
find <project_directory> -type d -name .git -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} find {} -type f -name desktop.ini -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm -vf {}
If you just want to delete the desktop.ini files in a specific .git directory, then you can use the following command:
find <.git_directory> -type f -name desktop.ini -print0 | xargs -0 -I {} rm -vf {}
Tried these but didn't work for me:
$ git gc --prune=now
$ git remote prune origin
$ git fetch --prune
I had to get this fixed by deleting the local folder and cloning again.
I had same issue. i follow following steps
1)switch your branch which having issue to other branch
2) delete that branch
3) checkout again.
Note:- You can stash you uncommitted changes and put it back again.
Got this issue when trying to clone from a git bundle created file, none of the other answers worked because I couldn't clone the repo (so git gc and removing/editing files was out of the question).
There was however another way to fix this - the source file of a .bundle file was begining with:
# v2 git bundle
9a3184e2f983ba13cc7f40a820df8dd8cf20b54d HEAD
9a3184e2f983ba13cc7f40a820df8dd8cf20b54d refs/heads/master
9a3184e2f983ba13cc7f40a820df8dd8cf20b54d refs/heads/master
PACK.......p..x...Kj.0...: (and so on...)
Simply removing the fourth line with vim fixed the issue.
I used git prune origin and that did the work.
Writing down a specific case that might cause this problem.
One day I pushed a branch named "feature/subfeature", while having "feature" branch on remote.
That operation worked fine without any error on my side, but when my co-workers fetched and/or pulled any branch, they all had the exact same error message unable to update local ref, cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/feature/subfeature.
This was solved by deleting feature branch on remote(git push --delete origin feature) and then running git remote prune origin on my co-workers' repo, which generated messages including * [pruned] origin/feature.
So, my guess is git fetch was trying to create subfeature ref in feature folder on git internally(.git/...), but creating folder failed because there was feature ref already.
Try this: git branch --unset-upstream
I was facing the problem earlier but I just solved it when I saw this command on the terminal.
# remove the reference file of the branch "lost"
rm -fv ./.git/refs/remotes/origin/feature/v1.6.9-api-token-bot-reader
# git clear everything
clear ; git reset HEAD --hard ; git clean -xdf ;
# subdue the current branch and pull all changes from the remote
clear ; git fetch --all -p ; git pull --all --rebase ; clear ; git branch -a
# git will "know" how-to handle the issue from now on
# From github.com:futurice/senzoit-www-server
# * [new branch] feature/v1.6.9-api-token-bot-reader ->
# origin/feature/v1.6.9-api-token-bot-reader
# and push your local changes
git push
Making git pull I got conflict errors:
user#os:/proects/path$ clear
user#os:/proects/path$ git pull origin frontend-4
Password for 'https://usrename#github.com':
From https://github.com/clientname/project
* branch frontend-4 -> FETCH_HEAD
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
package.json
public/js/app.js
public/mix-manifest.json
resources/js/components/common/Header.vue
resources/js/routes.js
Please commit your changes or stash them before you merge.
Aborting
user#os:/proects/path$ git stash
Saved working directory and index state WIP on main: e214191 Gigs pictures
making git stash I got conflicts with npm autogenerated files :
user#os:/proects/path$ git pull origin frontend-4
Password for 'https://usrename#github.com':
From https://github.com/clientname/project
* branch frontend-4 -> FETCH_HEAD
Auto-merging resources/js/routes.js
Auto-merging resources/js/components/common/Header.vue
Auto-merging public/js/app.js
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in public/js/app.js
Auto-merging public/css/frontend.css
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in public/css/frontend.css
Auto-merging package.json
Automatic merge failed; fix conflicts and then commit the result.
I tried to remove them first and run
npm run watch-poll
next
but I got errors :
user#os:/proects/path$ rm public/js/app.js
user#os:/proects/path$ rm public/css/frontend.css
user#os:/proects/path$ git commit -m "ignore compiled asset"
U public/css/frontend.css
U public/js/app.js
error: Committing is not possible because you have unmerged files.
hint: Fix them up in the work tree, and then use 'git add/rm <file>'
hint: as appropriate to mark resolution and make a commit.
fatal: Exiting because of an unresolved conflict.
How can it be fixed ?
I do not need decision like setting in .gitignore rules:
/public/js/*
/public/css/*
as I need to upload my css/files to server, as I do not have npm installed on server.
Answer : Find lines that prevent auto merging and then do rest
The main problem for not commiting or pushing is because of the conflicts between files
Git can handle most merges on its own with automatic merging features. A conflict arises when two separate branches have made edits to the same line in a file, or when a file has been deleted in one branch but edited in the other
There are many tools to help resolve merge conflicts, such as :
git log
git reset
git status
git checkout
git reset
#How to identify merge conflicts
As we have experienced from the proceeding example, Git will produce some descriptive output letting us know that a CONFLICT has occcured. We can gain further insight by running the git status command
$ git status
On branch main
You have unmerged paths.
(fix conflicts and run "git commit")
(use "git merge --abort" to abort the merge)
Unmerged paths:
(use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution)
both modified: merge.txt
The output from git status indicates that there are unmerged paths due to a conflict. The merge.text file now appears in a modified state. Let's examine the file and see whats modified.
$ cat merge.txt
<<<<<<< HEAD
this is some content to mess with
content to append
=======
totally different content to merge later
>>>>>>> new_branch_to_merge_later
Here we have used the cat command to put out the contents of the merge.txt file. We can see some strange new additions
Think of these new lines as "conflict dividers". The ======= line is the "center" of the conflict. All the content between the center and the <<<<<<< HEAD line is content that exists in the current branch main which the HEAD ref is pointing to. Alternatively all content between the center and >>>>>>> new_branch_to_merge_later is content that is present in our merging branch.
#How to resolve merge conflicts using the command line
The most direct way to resolve a merge conflict is to edit the conflicted file. Open the merge.txt file in your favorite editor. For our example lets simply remove all the conflict dividers. The modified merge.txt content should then look like:
this is some content to mess with
content to append
totally different content to merge later
Once the file has been edited use git add merge.txt to stage the new merged content. To finalize the merge create a new commit by executing:
git commit -m "merged and resolved the conflict in merge.txt"
Git will see that the conflict has been resolved and creates a new merge commit to finalize the merge.
#Git commands that can help resolve merge conflicts
General tools
git status
The status command is in frequent use when a working with Git and during a merge it will help identify conflicted files.
git log --merge
Passing the --merge argument to the git log command will produce a log with a list of commits that conflict between the merging branches.
git diff
diff helps find differences between states of a repository/files. This is useful in predicting and preventing merge conflicts.
Tools for when git fails to start a merge
git checkout
checkout can be used for undoing changes to files, or for changing branches
git reset --mixed
reset can be used to undo changes to the working directory and staging area.
Tools for when git conflicts arise during a merge
git merge --abort
Executing git merge with the --abort option will exit from the merge process and return the branch to the state before the merge began.
git reset
Git reset can be used during a merge conflict to reset conflicted files to a know good state
After an "unsuccessful" git pull on my local master, an error prevents to switch back to master:
C: repo_folder> git checkout master
error: invalid path '?'
The ? must be because it is a keybase repo.
From another branch where I checked out some files of the last commit:
C: repo_folder> git diff origin/master --compact-summary
"\004" (gone) | 1902 ---------------------------
some irrelevant stuff | (num) -
The removed file "\004" (that was never present in my local) seems to come from some Mac OS (someone might have opened a csv and a temporary file was created when that user did the commit and pushed?).
observe that the file that is marked as (gone) is to be removed by git
the problem is that the filename has characters that are not compatible with the Windows file system and that the file never existed in my local Windows repo.
If I clone from a Linux platform, I can checkout to master with no problems. However, in Windows, there's no way back to the master branch.
Any ideas on how to solve this issue? (already tried some posts with no success)
I can't really understand how it comes git doesn't even allow me to checkout to master. Should I file a bug report?
Alternatively, perhaps I could create a new master branch and get rid of the current one.
EDIT
A clone from Linux helped to identify that the file ? was actually there.
This could be checked directly from Windows as well by using the command: git ls-tree origin/master (which was showing the original problematic name "\004")
The accepted answer includes the case where you want to save the content of the file, while in my case I only wanted to get rid of it. So in my case, I have just deleted the file from Linux, committed and pushed the change, and did a git fetch origin master:master to fetch my local master with being checked out in another branch (as I was not able to checkout to master). This finally did the trick and I could checkout to master.
Hope this clarifies to someone with a similar problem.
? (or maybe it's EOT) cannot be used as a filename on Windows. The file will have to be deleted or renamed. You can do this most easily by cloning on a system which does allow ? and making the fix.
If you only have Windows, Fixing Invalid Git Paths on Windows offers a method of renaming the file without checking it out. In brief...
git checkout origin/master -f to get the checkout without the problematic file.
Make a branch.
Add and commit the "deleted" problematic file.
Use git ls-tree HEAD^ to get the ID of the problem file.
Use git cat-file -p <ID> to get the content of the problem file.
Put the content into a new file.
Add and commit.
Help!
I implemented Git to my project and somehow Git has made 3 files for saving my information: (1) Saves all of my view controllers, (2) The same file as (1), (3) my pods only.
The one containing my pods seems to be broken as I can not commit anything to it. First I thought nothing of these 3 Gits and proceeded coding, but now I am trying to branch my master with something I have been spending months coding but it seems to be crashing every time because it does not save my code to the master and makes me update my pods. Now after I tried to branch it, it did not work but now when I try to commit my files to the current branch I'm working on, it is not letting me without committing all 1600 files that are in my Pods. But the Pod file will not commit! I have no clue how to fix this and I am in desperate need of help!!!! Can anyone please help. I just want to have one place that will commit my files like in every Xcode git file. I do not want to lose my months of work.
I get the error: "The working copy “Pods” failed to commit files. - The source control operation failed because no repository could be found."
Please trouble shooting you issue with below aspects:
1. Use one git repository
If you mean 3 gits are 3 git repositories, you should keep only one git repo to manage your project. Only keep the repo that can contain all the files you want to manage under it’s directory.
As below example, if you project (the files you want to manage in git repo) is under Dir2 (not contains it’s parent Dir1), then you should remove the other two repos for Dir1 and Dir3 by removing the folders Dir1/.git and Dir1/Dir2/Dir3/.git.
Dir1
|___.git
|___ …
|___Dir2
|___.git
|___ …
|___Dir3
|___.git
|___ …
If you mean 3 gits are 3 git branches for the same git repo, before switching branches, you should make sure the work directory is clean (save and commit changes before switching branches).
2. Mark sure user.name and user.email has already been set
You can use the command git config -l to check if the output contains:
user.name=<username>
user.email=<email address>
If the output does not contain user.name and user.email, you should set as below:
git config --global user.name yourname
git config --global user.email xxx#xx.com
I have spent a great deal of time since I first started using Git struggling with files being reported as changed when they hadn't been touched, and core.filemode = false resolved those issues... but today I have the reverse problem. (Unless otherwise specified, I'm doing this from Git Bash (1.7.10.msysgit.1) in Windows 7.)
The situation:
On my master branch, I did git pull upstream master to pull the latest changes - this said everything was up to date (I double-checked and the last commit is the same on my local master, my origin fork and the upstream Github repo so I'm reasonably certain this is correct)
I amended an existing file. The diff in TortoiseGit 1.8.0.0 shows the changes, though its overlay still shows the directory as clean. Odd. git status is... still clean. Very odd.
I delete a file: rm Readme.md. File disappears. git status is still clean. Clearly, git isn't actually tracking my files anymore.
(For the record, setting core.filemode = true and then running git status just gave me nonsense about files whose mode changed at some point between my Windows system and Github, but still didn't list the deleted or the truly modified files)
I'm missing something here and I hope someone can tell me what it is! I've done dozens of commits from this machine to that same repository via my fork on Github so I'm reasonably certain this environment works and I generally know what I'm doing, but clearly something has changed that I can't put my finger on right now.
Edit, as requested, my Git workflow as followed in Bash (didn't bother checking out a new branch as the problem occurs in master anyway):
Emma Burrows#PC ~/Documents/Dropbox/gitproject (test)
$ git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'
Emma Burrows#PC ~/Documents/Dropbox/gitproject (master)
$ git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
Emma Burrows#PC ~/Documents/Dropbox/gitproject (master)
$ git pull upstream master
From git://github.com/company/gitproject
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up-to-date.
Emma Burrows#PC ~/Documents/Dropbox/gitproject (master)
$ rm Readme.md
Emma Burrows#PC ~/Documents/Dropbox/gitproject (master)
$ git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
Readme.md is a tracked file present in both my forked repo on Github and in the original upstream repo. I hope that helps?
NEW EDIT I've moved the folder out of Dropbox to a local folder on a local drive, but the problem remains the same. The .git folder must be poked. I was hoping to find out what was wrong with it though.
Thank you to everyone who tried to help. The problem persisted after I moved the whole folder, including .git folder into another location on my local hard drive. I can only assume that two copies of the repo on different machines had tried to sync the git folder at once and resulted in a broken local repo. I ended up recloning the folder (out of Dropbox for now) and everything is working normally again.