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error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/*'

DISCUSSION Nicolas Bock 4 participants 9 messages Jun 15, 2016

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Nicolas Bock

author
#0 lore raw

Hello list,

when running "git gc" I get the following error message as of late:

$ git gc
error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/*'
error: failed to run reflog

When I rsync the directory tree to another machine, I can run "git gc" without any error messages. What exactly does this error mean? Why would locking fail?

Thanks already,

nick

author
#1 lore raw

I realized that I recently upgraded from version 1.5.3.7 to 1.5.4.5. I double checked and downgraded again, and yes, I don't have any problems running "git gc" with the older version, but I get the below error message with the newer version of git.

nick

Quoted 20 lines · Nicolas Bock

Hello list,

when running "git gc" I get the following error message as of late:

$ git gc
error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/*'
error: failed to run reflog

When I rsync the directory tree to another machine, I can run "git gc" without any error messages. What exactly does this error mean? Why would locking fail?

Thanks already,

nick

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#2 lore raw

Hi,

Quoted 3 lines · Nicolas Bock
Quoted 3 lines
$ git gc
error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/*'
error: failed to run reflog

This is a bogus ref name. Hrm. Can you look with "git show-ref" if you have (by some funny accident) an invalid ref there?

Ciao,
Dscho

author
#3 lore raw

This is what I get:

$ git show-ref
a4995ae293fd95697a643cd3ea45585ecc38a19d refs/heads/ACT
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/heads/master
78e33155a0ab4ab0acba4c64758681fe99f1c5ca refs/heads/nick
ef66b3aa74b8c1edb55161e01a99dee7cf9edaa3 refs/remotes/origin/*
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/remotes/origin/master

in what sense is this ref "bogus"? Is it syntactically incorrect?

Quoted 18 lines · Johannes Schindelin

Hi,

Quoted 3 lines · Nicolas Bock
Quoted 3 lines
$ git gc
error: cannot lock ref 'refs/remotes/origin/*'
error: failed to run reflog

This is a bogus ref name. Hrm. Can you look with "git show-ref" if you have (by some funny accident) an invalid ref there?

Ciao,
Dscho

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#4 lore raw
Quoted 10 lines · Nicolas Bock

This is what I get:

$ git show-ref
a4995ae293fd95697a643cd3ea45585ecc38a19d refs/heads/ACT
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/heads/master
78e33155a0ab4ab0acba4c64758681fe99f1c5ca refs/heads/nick
ef66b3aa74b8c1edb55161e01a99dee7cf9edaa3 refs/remotes/origin/*
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/remotes/origin/master

in what sense is this ref "bogus"? Is it syntactically incorrect?

Yes, According to "man git-check-ref-format", asterisk is NOT allowed in a ref name.

...Johan

Signature · 2 lines
Johan Herland, <[email protected]>
www.herland.net
author
#5 lore raw

I guess I don't understand refs. I figured that since I have

remote.origin.fetch=+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

set, I should have a ref refs/remotes/origin/* as well.

Quoted 18 lines · Johan Herland
Quoted 10 lines · Nicolas Bock

This is what I get:

$ git show-ref
a4995ae293fd95697a643cd3ea45585ecc38a19d refs/heads/ACT
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/heads/master
78e33155a0ab4ab0acba4c64758681fe99f1c5ca refs/heads/nick
ef66b3aa74b8c1edb55161e01a99dee7cf9edaa3 refs/remotes/origin/*
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/remotes/origin/master

in what sense is this ref "bogus"? Is it syntactically incorrect?

Yes, According to "man git-check-ref-format", asterisk is NOT allowed in a ref name.

...Johan

#6 lore raw
Quoted 5 lines · Nicolas Bock

I guess I don't understand refs. I figured that since I have

remote.origin.fetch=+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

set, I should have a ref refs/remotes/origin/* as well.

The above is _globbing_ refspec, it means that it maps "refs/heads/<name>" branch in remote repository to "refs/remotes/origin/<name>" remote-tracking branch in local repository.

Signature · 3 lines
Jakub Narebski
Poland
ShadeHawk on #git
author
#7 lore raw

Thanks, that explains it..

nick

Quoted 13 lines · Jakub Narebski
Quoted 5 lines · Nicolas Bock

I guess I don't understand refs. I figured that since I have

remote.origin.fetch=+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

set, I should have a ref refs/remotes/origin/* as well.

The above is _globbing_ refspec, it means that it maps "refs/heads/<name>" branch in remote repository to "refs/remotes/origin/<name>" remote-tracking branch in local repository.

#8 lore raw
In reply to Nicolas Bock

Hi,

Quoted 7 lines · Nicolas Bock

This is what I get:

$ git show-ref
a4995ae293fd95697a643cd3ea45585ecc38a19d refs/heads/ACT
3378ccb42c22740b7fcc240ffa0e4f798b8acf1f refs/heads/master
78e33155a0ab4ab0acba4c64758681fe99f1c5ca refs/heads/nick
ef66b3aa74b8c1edb55161e01a99dee7cf9edaa3 refs/remotes/origin/*

This is the culprit. It is obviously a wrong name: "*" is not allowed.

Hth,
Dscho