Fail to use git pull "Couldn't find remote ref xxx"

Question

I come up with a problem about git pull. Firstly, I am in "test_http_1204" branch, ``` root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# git branch master * test_http_1204 ubuntu1204 ``` Then I use git pull, and got an error message, ``` root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# git pull m109bosh test_http_1204 fatal: Couldn't find remote ref test_http_1204 Unexpected end of command stream ``` But, I can find branch "test_http_1204" in my remote repo "m109bosh", ``` root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# git branch -a master * test_http_1204 ubuntu1204 remotes/m109bosh/master remotes/m109bosh/patch-1 remotes/m109bosh/test_http_1204 remotes/m109bosh/ubuntu1204 remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master remotes/origin/floating_dns_registry remotes/origin/http_stemcell_uploader remotes/origin/master remotes/origin/squashed remotes/origin/ubuntu1204 remotes/origin/upstream ``` And, the content of .git/config is shown below: ``` root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# cat .git/config [core] repositoryformatversion…

Accepted Answer

Based on `git ls-remote` output (was in comment, now gone - it doesn't fit very well in comments) it looks like the remote used to have a branch named `test_http_1024`, but no longer does.

In other words, whoever controls the remote did a `git branch -d` (or something equivalent) to delete their branch `test_http_1024`. This means that when you ask `git pull` for the contents of that branch, all it can tell you is: "eh? what? what branch?" :-)

When you look at your own set of remote branches, you can see that they used to have a branch `test_http_1024` (which your git copied to `remotes/m109bosh/test_http_1204`, back when it existed). But they can add or delete branches whenever they want.

If you run `git fetch -p m109bosh` or `git remote update --prune m109bosh`, your own git will delete its (old, stale) copy of their `test_http_1024` branch. (You might not want to do this if you're still using it for something.)

A perhaps more important issue is that in:

```
[remote "m109bosh"]
    url = https://github.com/m1093782566/bosh-cloudstack-cpi.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/m109bosh/*
    url = https://github.com/m1093782566/bosh.git
```

there are two different `url =` lines. Presumably one of them is out of date. (`git fetch` uses the first one, so perhaps the second is the one you want.)

Fail to use git pull "Couldn't find remote ref xxx"

Solution

Problem