CODEWITHSUNDEEP
git
user1785730
user1785730

Reputation: 3557

Are the 'pack' files essential to a bare git repository?

I had a few bare git repositories on a Raspberry Pi's SD card. When I was copying the repos there was an error reading the pack files like repo.git/objects/pack/pack-123abc.pack. Interestingly, only the pack files of several repos are affected. The error is when accessing these files, the Raspberry Pi simply crashes. I assume these files are gone for good, unless somebody has an idea how I might recuperate them?

Anyway, I copied the repositories off the SD card without the pack files (without the whole pack/ folder in fact). Not surprisingly, there is an error when I try to clone the repository:

git clone git/repo.git/
Cloning into 'repo'...
done.
fatal: unable to read tree 541c6fc258f6bd724e4a1f3aad43f8c23dcdb644
warning: Clone succeeded, but checkout failed.
You can inspect what was checked out with 'git status'
and retry with 'git restore --source=HEAD :/'

Is there any chance that I'm still able to extract anything from these repositories?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 157

Answers (1)

bk2204
bk2204

Reputation: 76754

Yes, the pack files are essential. When many loose objects are present in a repository, they get packed into a packfile, which is both smaller and faster than handling many loose objects. As a result, in many cases, packfiles can be the only source of the Git objects in the repository.

If you have copies of these repositories elsewhere, you can try copying the .pack and .idx files from those repositories into your broken repository and then running git fsck to see if all of the objects are there. If you have no other source for these objects, then you've almost certainly lost data.

Upvotes: 2

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