Fail to use git pull "Couldn't find remote ref xxx"

Question

I come up with a problem about git pull.

Firstly, I am in "test_http_1204" branch,

root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# git branch
              master
            * test_http_1204
              ubuntu1204

Then I use git pull, and got an error message,

 root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# git pull m109bosh test_http_1204
    fatal: Couldn't find remote ref test_http_1204
    Unexpected end of command stream

But, I can find branch "test_http_1204" in my remote repo "m109bosh",

root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# git branch -a
  master
* test_http_1204
  ubuntu1204
  remotes/m109bosh/master
  remotes/m109bosh/patch-1
  remotes/m109bosh/test_http_1204
  remotes/m109bosh/ubuntu1204
  remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  remotes/origin/floating_dns_registry
  remotes/origin/http_stemcell_uploader
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/origin/squashed
  remotes/origin/ubuntu1204
  remotes/origin/upstream

And, the content of .git/config is shown below:

  root@inception-server-Quantal:~/bosh# cat .git/config 
    [core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
    [remote "origin"]
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
        url = https://github.com/cloudfoundry-community/bosh-cloudstack-cpi.git
    [branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master
    [branch "ubuntu1204"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/ubuntu1204
    [remote "m109bosh"]
        url = https://github.com/m1093782566/bosh-cloudstack-cpi.git
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/m109bosh/*
        url = https://github.com/m1093782566/bosh.git

I guess the root cause maybe the missing of [branch "test_http_1204"] in the .git/config, but when I add these lines to .git/config manually, it still does not work.

[branch "test_http_1204"]
        remote = m109bosh
        merge = refs/heads/test_http_1204

I have no idea about that. Could you please tell me how to fix it? Thanks!

Answer 1

Based on git ls-remote output (was in comment, now gone - it doesn't fit very well in comments) it looks like the remote used to have a branch named test_http_1024, but no longer does.

In other words, whoever controls the remote did a git branch -d (or something equivalent) to delete their branch test_http_1024. This means that when you ask git pull for the contents of that branch, all it can tell you is: "eh? what? what branch?" :-)

When you look at your own set of remote branches, you can see that they used to have a branch test_http_1024 (which your git copied to remotes/m109bosh/test_http_1204, back when it existed). But they can add or delete branches whenever they want.

If you run git fetch -p m109bosh or git remote update --prune m109bosh, your own git will delete its (old, stale) copy of their test_http_1024 branch. (You might not want to do this if you're still using it for something.)

---

A perhaps more important issue is that in:

[remote "m109bosh"]
    url = https://github.com/m1093782566/bosh-cloudstack-cpi.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/m109bosh/*
    url = https://github.com/m1093782566/bosh.git

there are two different url = lines. Presumably one of them is out of date. (git fetch uses the first one, so perhaps the second is the one you want.)