Git - "Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 3 commits."

Question

hi all

I'm getting this info in git

>git status
# On branch master
# Your branch is ahead of 'origin/master' by 3 commits.
#
nothing to commit (working directory clean)

And, when i try to push, i get this:

fatal: failed to write object
error: unpack failed: unpacker exited with error code
To ssh:<my repository>
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (n/a (unpacker error))
error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh:<my repository>'

I've been googling this a bit, (eg there's a stackoverflow question about it here - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1741143/git-git-pull-origin-mybranch-leaves-local-mybranch-n-commits-ahead-of-origin ) and the general advice seems to be to do a pull then a push. But this doesn't work for me - a pull tells me i'm up to date. I've also tried 'git fetch origin' (nothing). I've also tried:

> git remote show origin
* remote origin
  URL: ssh://<my repository>
  HEAD branch: master
  Remote branch:
    master tracked
  Local branch configured for 'git pull':
    master merges with remote master
  Local ref configured for 'git push':
    master pushes to master (fast forwardable)

In case that helps anyone.

I also tried adding a dummy file on our web server (which also checks out master), committing it and pushing it up, then pulling it down locally. That all worked fine. But i still can't push. Can anyone tell me what i need to do to resolve this? I don't even really know what it means to say that i've fast forwarded relative to the repository.

cheers, max

EDIT - for ebneter and dan (thanks)

> git config -l
user.name=Max Williams
push.default=tracking
core.repositoryformatversion=0
core.filemode=true
core.bare=false
core.logallrefupdates=true
remote.origin.fetch=+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
remote.origin.url=ssh://<my repo url>
branch.master.remote=origin
branch.master.merge=refs/heads/master

A screen grab of gitk is at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/846812/gitk.png

• i'm new to git so i can't interpret this very well, but i'm wondering if the commit done as root (line 6 in the top section), 'merge branch master...' has maybe cocked things up. I don't remember doing a commit as root, puzzled...

Dan - I think you're right: the error i get when i try to push is

error: unable to create temporary sha1 filename ./objects/05: File exists

fatal: failed to write object
error: unpack failed: unpacker exited with error code

EDIT - this comment from the other stackoverflow question i referred to earlier did actually fix it:

git remote alone (showing the right address for GitHub repo) is not enough. To avoid having an "Your branch is ahead" warning message after a git pull, you need first to also define the remote name for a branch. Hence my suggestion: type git config branch.master.remote yourGitHubRepo.git, then try a git pull and a git status and see if the issue remains. – VonC Nov 16 at 20:22

Answer 1

It looks like the problem you are having is related to the "unpacker error" mentioned on the "remote rejected" line. For some reason the remote end is failing to unpack the objects that were sent to it. This could be caused by any number of things. Some things you can try:

git fsck --full

Run that locally and at the remote (if possible).

git repack remotes/origin/master

Run that on the local repo.

If neither of those fixes the problem, try googling git "unpacker error" for other ideas. I've personally never experienced this problem, so that's unfortunately about all the advice I can give.

Answer 2

There's an answer provided here