How to handle git gc fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/HEAD error?

Question

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?

Answer 1

Umm from 2024, I got an error like this too.

From https://github.com/Owner/repo fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/HEAD 2 error: https://github.com/Owner/repo.git did not send all necessary objects

And then I ask chatgpt about this and it work, maybe it should help. It told me it's a corruption in the refs or an incomplete clone then you should remove your remotes and set up again.

1. Check if the Repository URL is Correct

   git clone https://github.com/Owner/repo.git

2. Fix or Remove Corrupt refs

   rm -rf .git/refs/remotes/origin

Then fetch the repository again:

git fetch origin

3. Reset HEAD Reference

   git remote set-head origin --auto

4. Check for Partial Clone

   git fetch --all --prune git reset --hard origin/main # Replace main with your branch

** At this step I don't do it ** 5. Perform a Fresh Clone If the above does not work, the simplest solution might be to delete the local repository and perform a fresh clone:

rm -rf repo/  # Replace with the local directory name
git clone https://github.com/Owner/repo.git

and then 6. Verify Network and Git Version Sometimes, network issues or outdated Git versions can cause errors. Ensure your Git is up-to-date:

git --version

after this try

git fetch

and It work for me. Hope it help. Sorry for if something weird, this is my first answer in stack.

Answer 2

I tried nearly every response to this question for my own issue with trying to commit changes to my repository.

My error was:

2024-11-24 16:48:19.934 [info] warning: ignoring ref with broken name refs/heads/main 2
2024-11-24 16:48:19.934 [warning] [Git][revParse] Unable to read file: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '<path_to_my_local_repo>'
2024-11-24 16:48:19.940 [info] > git rev-parse refs/remotes/origin/main [5ms]
2024-11-24 16:48:19.947 [info] > git for-each-ref --sort -committerdate --format %(refname) %(objectname) %(*objectname) [7ms]
2024-11-24 16:48:19.947 [info] warning: ignoring ref with broken name refs/heads/main 2

For anyone else with this same/similar issue and nothing seems to work for them, this was my last resort option:

git push origin main --force

Ensure main is the branch you're pushing to, if your branch is master, replace it with that. (Check your branch by git branch --show-current or list them all with git branch

⚠️ WARNING

This can cause issues, so I don't recommend it as your first option. However, this worked for me.

Answer 3

I have solved this using, The commands mentioned below.

Error in my case:

fatal: update_ref failed for the ref 'orig_head': cannot lock ref 'orig_head': unable to resolve reference 'orig_head': reference broken completed with errors, see above.

1. Navigate to the .git/ directory in your repository.

2. Remove the ORIG_HEAD file manually (You can give your file name showing an error in my case. It is ORIG_HEAD).

Alternatively, you can run the following command in the root of your Git repository

rm .git/ORIG_HEAD

3. After removing the ORIG_HEAD file, try running the git gc --prune=now command or any other Git command that was previously failing.

git gc --prune=now

Answer 4

Have no idea how did I corrupt it so badly, but nothing from that branch helps me. I finish with next solution:

1. clone project into separate folder
2. (optional) - switch to related branch
3. copy-paste .git folder from newly created project into original
4. git status and git add commands to prepare commit

Answer 5

rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD

git gc

Answer 6

I deleted the entire project and pulled it back

Answer 7

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.

Answer 8

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.

Answer 9

I search "fatal: bad object refs/remotes/origin/master" and flowing the link to this stackoverflow question to find answer.

• My situatioin

1. 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)

2. after I execute git branch --unset-upstream, I could git 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,

1. cat .git/refs/heads/master, got a COMMIT-HASH
2. cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD, got ref: refs/remotes/origin/master
3. cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/master, it was empty

maybe the file .git/refs/remotes/origin/master was the problem.

4. rm .git/refs/remotes/origin/master, git pull again, 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

5. OK, set-upstream back

zsh ❯ git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/master master
branch 'master' set up to track 'origin/master'.

6. 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.

7. 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.

Answer 10

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

Answer 11

for me, the problem was occurring with the push from VS Code. I did git push manually in the terminal. it worked.

Answer 12

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

1. Open the repo in a terminal
2. Navigate to /tags using the cd command
3. Run the ls command to verify the duplicate exists i.e. v1.0.1 2
4. 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!

Answer 13

In my I just deleted that particular refs: refs/heads/feat/implement-games. After that, I was already able to git pull origin master

Answer 14

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

Answer 15

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

Answer 16

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.

Answer 17

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:

1. create a "delete.bat" file in the repository and add the following code to it

   del /s /q /f /a ".\desktop.ini"

2. Open cmd and open the current folder

3. run delete.bat by simply calling it in cmd

Now you should be able to run git remote set-head origin --auto

followed by git gc

Answer 18

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.

Answer 19

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

Answer 20

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

Answer 21

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'

Answer 22

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.

Answer 23

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.

Answer 24

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.

Answer 25

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.

Answer 26

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.

Answer 27

The problem that I ran into (which is the same problem that @Stavarengo mentioned in this comment above) is that the default remote branch (develop in my case) had been deleted, but was still referenced in .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD.

Opening .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD in my editor showed this:

ref: refs/remotes/origin/develop

I carefully edited it to point at my new default branch and all was well:

ref: refs/remotes/origin/master

The clue that tipped me off was that running git prune showed this error:

> git prune
warning: symbolic ref is dangling: refs/remotes/origin/HEAD