Error pushing to GitHub - insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database

Question

I'm getting back an unusual error while trying to do a "git push" to my GitHub repository:

Counting objects: 8, done.
Delta compression using 2 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (4/4), done.
Writing objects: 100% (5/5), 1.37 KiB, done.
Total 5 (delta 2), reused 0 (delta 0)
error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database ./objects

fatal: failed to write object
error: unpack-objects exited with error code 128
error: unpack failed: unpack-objects abnormal exit
To [email protected]:bixo/bixo.git
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (n/a (unpacker error))
error: failed to push some refs to '[email protected]:bixo/bixo.git'

• After a clean clone from GitHub, I can edit/add/commit/push a modified file.
• If I then repeat this a second time I get the above error.
• I can push to other GitHub repositories just fine.
• I've checked file/directory permissions on my side, and they seem OK.
• I'm running git 1.6.2.3 on Mac OS X 10.5.8

The above repository was the source of my fun for a previous Stack Overflow question (SO 1904860), so maybe the GitHub repo got corrupted. The only similar issue I've found via searching was an unpack failed problem reported on github. Has anybody else run into this issue before, especially when not using GitHub?

Thanks,

-- Ken

Answer 1

OK - turns out it was a permissions problem on GitHub that happened during the fork of emi/bixo to bixo/bixo. Once Tekkub fixed these, it started working again.

Answer 2

Usually this problem is caused by wrong user and group permissions on your git servers file-system.

If your user is called "git" then the git repository has to be owned by him and also his group.

Example: Location of git repo: [email protected]:path/to/repo.git Then do a sudo chown -R git:git repo.git/

This fixed the git insufficient permission error for me.