Git error: previous rebase directory .git/rebase-apply still exists but mbox given

Question

I'm trying to apply a patch, which I took from http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2014-May/104356.html. I copied it into a text editor, and saved it as my.patch (I needed to fix the email, it had been obfuscated).

I tried to apply it with Git, but I'm getting this error:

sashoalm@sashoalm-VirtualBox:~/Desktop/wine-git$ git am --signoff <my.patch previous rebase directory /home/sashoalm/Desktop/wine-git/.git/rebase-apply still exists but mbox given. 

This cryptic error message gives me no idea what's wrong or what I need to do to make it work. What does this error mean? And how do I fix it?

Answer 1

git am --abort 

worked for me, but git rebase --abort did not.

What happened: I tried to apply a patch but it had been corrupted (likely by Gmail copy pasting in body):

git am bad.patch 

And Git said:

Applying: python: fix Linetable case to LineTable in docstrings and comments fatal: corrupt patch at line 56 Patch failed at 0001 python: fix Linetable case to LineTable in docstrings and comments The copy of the patch that failed is found in:    /home/ciro/git/binutils-gdb/src/.git/rebase-apply/patch When you have resolved this problem, run "git am --continue". If you prefer to skip this patch, run "git am --skip" instead. To restore the original branch and stop patching, run "git am --abort". 

Note how git gives out the solution: To restore the original branch and stop patching, run "git am --abort".

Then I obviously ignored the message, and tried a fixed version immediately:

git am good.patch 

and got the error.