I randomly hit this today while trying to run Git garbage collect:
$ git gc
fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
error: failed to run repack
How do I deal with this?
How to handle git gc fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/HEAD error?
199.6k Views Asked by Ryan At
24
There are 24 best solutions below
0
On
If you have a branch that causes this error. You need to do the following things:
Go to .git and remove the branch that makes the error.
I had this error:
fatal: bad object refs/heads/extract_false_neg
I removed files with the name 'extract_false_neg' inside .git/ref/tags and ./git/ref/head.
0
On
Check, if any files are corrupted:
git fsck --full
If so, run:
git prune
git fetch origin master:refs/remotes/origin/master
This fixed the issue for me.
2
On
Thank god I found this https://makandracards.com/chris-4/54101-fixing-a-git-repo
fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
error: failed to run repack
This may happen if upstream branches have been removed and your origin is pointing to it. You can confirm this by running:
cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
If it is pointing to a branch that doesn't exist, running:
git remote set-head origin --auto
followed by
git gc
will fix it
0
On
My problem occurred with a specific branch.
Apparently the reference file for branch was corrupted. I fixed it like that.
git checkout main
// I removed the file .git\refs\heads\branch_xpto
git pull
git checkout branch_xpto
2
On
The above solution partially worked for me because my folder had the "desktop.ini" files everywhere in the repository as it is hosted on Google Drive, including the “.git” folders where Git was storing its own data. Git expected every file in that folder to contain Git data, not Google Drive data, and it choked trying to interpret the desktop.ini file contents.
To avoid this, make sure to include desktop.ini in .gitignore
I first deleted these files using a batch command on windows as follows:
create a "delete.bat" file in the repository and add the following code to it
del /s /q /f /a ".\desktop.ini"Open
cmdand open the current folderrun
delete.batby simply calling it incmd
Now you should be able to run
git remote set-head origin --auto
followed by git gc
0
On
If you're using git worktrees, make sure you're doing a
git worktree prune
before running
git gc
I had a worktree get corrupted and this seemed to do the trick after removing the corrupted worktree. git prune by itself didn't seem to work.
0
On
In my I just deleted that particular refs: refs/heads/feat/implement-games. After that, I was already able to git pull origin master
0
On
I am not really sure how this occurs, but it seems that its being caused due to duplicates.
What worked for me was manually deleting duplicates. I navigated to each of the folders and manually removed the duplicates.
I had the below issue bad object refs/tags/v1.0.1 2
- Open the repo in a terminal
- Navigate to /tags using the cd command
- Run the ls command to verify the duplicate exists i.e. v1.0.1 2
- Run the rm command to remove the duplicate -> rm v1.0.1\ 2 (\ to handle the space)
Then try to git gc again. In my case, I had more duplicates in diff locations that I had to manually delete in the same manner, but once all were removed - everything work normally.
I hope this works for you!
3
On
After seeing Trenton’s answer, I looked at my .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD and saw that it was also pointing to an old branch that is now deleted.
But instead of editing the file myself, I tried Ryan’s solution:
git remote set-head origin --auto
It automatically set the file to the new branch, and git gc worked fine after that.
0
On
The cause of this for me was working in a compressed folder in Windows. When the folder was uncompressed, it corrupted the pack files, cascading other odd issues, such as not being able to prune nonexistent branches.
The only fix was to wipe out the working directory and clone the repo remote(s) again. Luckily, I could still push and pull updates to ensure nothing was lost. All is well now.
0
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If someone is getting this error
fatal: bad object refs/stash 2
error: https://github.com/Username/repository.git did not send all necessary objects
this is how I fixed
mv .git/refs/stash\ 2 /tmp
git gc
0
On
I ran into the same issue, when I tried to pull from the origin branch, I got the following error:
fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/account
The solutions above didn't work for me for some reason. Kept getting this error
mv: cannot stat '.git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD': No such file or directory
And running git gc gave this error:
error: bad ref for .git/logs/refs/remotes/origin/account
fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/account
fatal: failed to run repack
In my situation, the remote branch was pointing to a branch that didn't exist.
What fixed it for me was deleting the branch
git branch -D account
and also deleting it from .git/refs/remotes/origin/account
Everything working perfectly.
1
On
Looks like your symbolic-refs might be broken... Try the replacing it with your default branch like this: For example, my default branch is master
$ git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD refs/remotes/origin/master
$ git fetch --prune
$ git gc
That should fix it.
0
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Have no idea how did I corrupt it so badly, but nothing from that branch helps me. I finish with next solution:
- clone project into separate folder
- (optional) - switch to related branch
- copy-paste .git folder from newly created project into original
- git status and git add commands to prepare commit
12
On
I don't understand the ramifications of this, but as suggested in this thread, when I encountered this I just did
$ mv .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD /tmp
(keeping it around just in case) and then
$ git gc
worked without complaining; I haven't run into any problems.
0
On
for me, the problem was occurring with the push from VS Code. I did git push manually in the terminal. it worked.
0
On
For me a deleted branch on origin was creating that error.
Edited: .git\info\refs And removed the line with the branch causing this error, in my case a feature branch that was pushed to origin, but did not go trough and somehow deleted on origin.
Then run git fetch --prune and then git gc
0
On
I search "fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/master" and flowing the link to this stackoverflow question to find answer.
- My situatioin
git status
zsh ❯ git status
On branch master
Your branch is based on 'origin/master', but the upstream is gone.
(use "git branch --unset-upstream" to fixup)
- after I execute
git branch --unset-upstream, I couldgit pull, but got this error
Unpacking objects: 100% (19/19), 6.82 KiB | 6.82 MiB/s, done.
fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/master
error: https://github.com/lapce/lapce-plugin-rust did not send all necessary objects
- Try to find solution
follow the fatal massage,
cat .git/refs/heads/master, got a COMMIT-HASHcat .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD, gotref: refs/remotes/origin/mastercat .git/refs/remotes/origin/master, it was empty
maybe the file .git/refs/remotes/origin/master was the problem.
rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master,git pullagain, I got,
a9c3764..02d3a76 master -> origin/master
There is no tracking information for the current branch.
Please specify which branch you want to merge with.
See git-pull(1) for details.
git pull <remote> <branch>
If you wish to set tracking information for this branch you can do so with:
git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/<branch> master
- OK, set-upstream back
zsh ❯ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/master master
branch 'master' set up to track 'origin/master'.
- try
git pull
zsh > git pull
Updating a9c3764..02d3a76
Fast-forward
.gitignore | 2 ++
Cargo.lock | 55 +++++++++++++++++++------------------------------------
Cargo.toml | 3 +--
README.md | 2 ++
src/main.rs | 89 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------------------
...
8 files changed, 88 insertions(+), 67 deletions(-)
It looked fine.
cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/master,cat .git/refs/heads/master, got the same COMMIT-HASH.
- So, Finally
In my case, the HEAD COMMIT-HASH in the file .git/refs/remotes/origin/master was empty( git told u the upstream is gone), somehow. Delete the file, and git pull again to rebuild it, follow git advise message after every git command's feedback, would probably get thing done.
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I hit this error because the default branch was changed from master to main.
I used a mix of info given by a few of the answers above to resolve it:
cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
Returned:
ref: refs/remotes/origin/master
To fix it, I ran:
git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD refs/remotes/origin/main
I ran this again to double-check:
cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
Which returned:
ref: refs/remotes/origin/main
Then git gc and git prune worked just fine.
To see what happens I also tried:
git remote set-head origin --auto
Which returned:
origin/HEAD set to main
And it really solves the problem by identifying the ref automatically.
3
On
git update-ref -d [wrong reference here]
This will fix this issue.
For above issue use following code:
git update-ref -d 'refs/remotes/origin/HEAD'
In case you are getting error with .git like below:
error: bad ref for .git/logs/refs/remotes/origin/Dec/session-dynatrace-logs 6
You can copy the path starting from refs like below:
git update-ref -d 'refs/remotes/origin/Dec/session-dynatrace-logs 6'
0
On
What worked for me was to get into the folder itself in my pc cause I kept getting the error
No such file or directory
whenever I run
mv .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD /tmp
$ git gc git prune
After opening the hidden files, you can do this by pressing cmd + shift + . on Mac or Windows then ref > remote > origin and delete the unnecessary files
The problem that I ran into (which is the same problem that @Stavarengo mentioned in this comment above) is that the default remote branch (
developin my case) had been deleted, but was still referenced in.git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD.Opening
.git/refs/remotes/origin/HEADin my editor showed this:I carefully edited it to point at my new default branch and all was well:
The clue that tipped me off was that running
git pruneshowed this error: