Git unable to resolve references when pushing

git, github

Solution

(a worthwhile tl;dr from @NeTeInStEiN:

The nuclear option is `rm -rf .git/refs/remotes/origin`, and that's what it took here)

edit: I've run across part of this behavior in one of my own repos, I can get git to reproduce the f-e-r failure without the `rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master` hack:

- clone a repo

- delete the origin's primary branch (the one its `HEAD`'s attached to)

- run `git fetch --prune` in the clone

The fetch will produce a dangling-ref warning, and `git for-each-ref` will fail with a familiar message:

~/sandbox/20/buddy$ git fetch --prune
From /home/jthill/sandbox/20/source/.
 x [deleted]         (none)     -> origin/master
   (refs/remotes/origin/HEAD has become dangling)
~/sandbox/20/buddy$ git f-e-r
fatal: missing object 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 for refs/remotes/origin/HEAD

but that doesn't break the push, I've tried with every setting of `push.default`, nor does it break `git update-ref -d`.

However, googling the push message did get me this:

I had just rebooted from a BSOD the other day [...] then git push. And that’s when I got a complaint about “Unable to resolve reference refs/remotes/origin/master…”. [...] So, I opened up the master file and it was full of spaces! Well, that’s no good. In order to fix it, I did this: [your `rm`, and then `git fetch`]

See comments above for the blow-by-blow, tl;dr is, because these were remote refs, which `git fetch` completely refreshes, and because the damage was such that `for-each-ref` and `git update-ref` failed to work at all, the nuclear option `rm -rf refs/remotes/origin; git fetch` was guaranteed to restore the remote properly.

In other circumstances, if there'd been no easy way to restore the damaged refs or for curiosity, `find .git/refs/remotes/origin -type f` to check for locks or using reflogs (those files are in `.git/logs`) to recover content would have helped but it wasn't necessary here. I think I missed a bet by not doing the `find` first, `*.lock` files from a `kill -9`ed earlier command look likely here, but I suspected an ambiguous ref and f-e-r is my first step for those.

Problem

I am having an issue with Git. For unknown reasons, my master branch has somehow gotten corrupted. I have a local commit that I want to push up, but when I push, I get this: ``` git push origin master error: unable to resolve reference refs/remotes/origin/master: No such file or directory error: cannot lock the ref 'refs/remotes/origin/master'. Everything up-to-date ``` I have seen the issue on other boards, but usually referring to pulls and not pushes. Nevertheless, I have tried their solutions, but to no avail: - Tried amending to my current commit and pushing - cleaned my git repository with `git gc --prune=now` - Tried `rm .git/refs/removes/origin/master` None have solved my issues. Any thoughts or ideas?

Original source