git fatal not a git repository (or any of the parent directories) .git

Question

fatal not a git repository (or any of the parent directories) .git is the error I'm getting when I try to perform any git operation on my repo. I made some changes to my project which is the repo then I try to git status to look over my changes and encounter this error. I Googled this error but didn't make any progress. It seems this error is most common when trying to perform git operations in a directory that's outside the repo which isn't the case for me. Also I tried checking my ./git/HEAD and ./git/logs/refs/heads both of which are empty files. ./git/logs/refs/remotes/origin/master is also empty.

So from the beginning:

• I made an Android project in this directory on one computer.
• I initiated a git on this directory and posted it on github.
• I followed the usual online guides for pulling this repo onto 2 other computers.
• Made some changes on another computer, pushed the changes to the repo.
• Then on the original computer I successfully pulled the changes.
• After not working on the project for a few days, I made some changes on the original computer, tried to git status and this happens.

Answer 1

In my case, accidentally .git/HEAD file was messed up with non unknown characters, but .git/ORIG_HEAD file was ok (it has commit id). So, I copied .git/ORIG_HEAD content to .git/HEAD file. Then restarted IDE (Aptana) and everything worked fine.

Answer 2

Make sure you don't have a GIT_DIR or GIT_WORK_TREE environment variable set in your current session, which would point to an incorrect folder.

In doubt, try a:

cd /path/to /your/repo
git --git-dir .git --work-tree . status

If that still fails, try at least to clone that repo again from GitHub, and add your recent changes in that new repo:

cd /path/to/new/clone
git --git-dir .git --work-tree /path/to /your/repo add .

(and go on working in that new clone)