CODEWITHSUNDEEP
gitgit-stash
fredley
fredley

Reputation: 33871

Can't pop git stash, 'Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge'

So I had a load of changes and some untracked files. I needed to tweak something, so I used git stash -u, modified a couple of things, committed those changes, pushed them, and then tried to git stash pop.

Because I'd modified a couple of files that I'd stashed, I got the following message:

error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
    file_1.py
    file_2.py
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
Aborting

This seems odd, I had committed all new changes, my checkout was clean when I ran the command.

It seems the git stash pop operation un-stashed half of my changes and the untracked files, but if I try and git stash pop again I get output like:

some_file.html already exists, no checkout
some_other_file.html already exists, no checkout
yet_another_file.html already exists, no checkout
Could not restore untracked files from stash

git stash show still shows a list of my stashed changes, but I'm at a loss as to what I do now.

How can I get myself unstuck?

Upvotes: 104

Views: 61095

Answers (4)

joeytwiddle
joeytwiddle

Reputation: 31255

For those who do have un-committed work, and want to pop their stash without losing that work, here is a way (with thanks to @iFreilicht):

  1. Temporarily stage any uncommitted changes:

     git add -u .

  2. Now you can apply your stash without git complaining (hopefully):

     git stash pop

  3. Now unstage everything, but leave the files as they are now:

     git reset

If step 2 couldn't patch cleanly due to conflicting changes, then you will need to resolve the conflicts manually. git diff should help you find them. git mergetool might help by opening your editor with before and current files.

Upvotes: 194

pkso
pkso

Reputation: 1

None of these solutions worked for me. I was using git stash index command to restore a specific stash id. So, I ended up doing a commit of my local changes to local repo. Then git stash index worked for me. And finally I rolled back my commit using git reset (with keep changes). Problem solved.

Upvotes: 0

fredley
fredley

Reputation: 33871

I got around this, I think it must have been some kind of bug, as my working directory was clean and up to date.

I ran git checkout . and after that git stash apply worked fine, I got everything back no problems at all. I'd be interested to work out what actually caused it to fail though.

Upvotes: 65

torek
torek

Reputation: 487765

The stash that was made with -u needs to have the untracked files cleaned away before being apply-ed (and pop is just apply+drop).

Out of general paranoia I'd mv the untracked files somewhere safe, then git stash apply, check everything carefully, and git stash drop once I'm sure I have it all correct. :-)

Upvotes: 3

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