Error when using SourceTree with Git: 'Summary' failed with code 128: fatal: unable to read tree

Question

We've been seeing a dialog pop up when using SourceTree with a particular Git repository of ours, with the error message:

'Summary' failed with code 128: fatal: unable to read tree 152c27e57424de6ae0df1f0d32feba7beae6e2fb

The error message pops up multiple times per day.

There is no additional information in the log, and we can't reproduce the error message using Git on the command line. When we run a few tests:

Craig@DEMO-PC /d/project (major)
$ git cat-file -t 152c27e
tree

Craig@DEMO-PC /d/project (major)
$ git cat-file -p 152c27e
040000 tree 174f073109a9d0721b35e84140d0a7b29dc48ef9    main
040000 tree fb011d0153c1521441d583196a93f945dcb0df1e    test

A run of git ls-tree -r 152c27e spits out all the children of the tree, which confirms it is the src folder of our Java project.

Further, a git fsck --full succeeds without errors. The objects and object directories are 100% in shape, and there are no dangling items. Permissions for the objects seem fine.

Is there anything we can do to double-check the status of our repository, or to attempt to reproduce the error message?

Answer 1

It could be possible that it is a permission issue, where:

• the permission look fine from a current user point of view
• the permission isn't fine from the account running SourceTree

There was a similar case reported back in February 2013, without any answer.
But it isn't limited to SourceTree:

• Jenkins case 13634:

Wiping out the workspace solves the problem completely.

• Redmine issue 16

somehow the private key Redmine uses to authenticate with the git user got renamed within the gitolite config.

So this is generally related to a process accessing data as a different user than the one expected.