Git fatal: pack has bad object at offset X: inflate returned -5

Question

Git has given me a lovely christmas gift... I'm trying to git push a bunch of commits, like 6 GB. And I'm getting the following error message:

-Counting objects: 525, done.
Delta compression using up to 24 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (474/474), done.
fatal: pack has bad object at offset 3453162391: inflate returned -5
error: pack-objects died of signal 13
error: failed to push some refs to ....git

What does this mean and how is it fixed? From Google I can tell it has something to do with the size of what I'm trying to push.

This happened while it was writing.

Answer 1

Based on your offset, it looks like you're trying to push some really big object (offset 3453162391 =~ >= 3GB), so zlib failed on inflating/compressing the object since there was not enough room in the output buffer (error: Z_BUF_ERROR).

This could be related to temporary lack of memory, or some buffer limits. Basically it's trying to process as much input as possible using the available output, otherwise it returns Z_BUF_ERROR. See: zlib inflate returning a buffer error.

You should re-try to see if the problem can be reproduced.

If the issue is repeatable, then try to:

• avoid pushing large files into git repository, Git was designed to track the source code files, not very large files (like 6GB),

• increase git message size on your client http.postBuffer, e.g.

  git config http.postBuffer 134217728 # =~ 128MB
  

• use some alternative client which can ignore larger blobs, such as bfg, e.g.

  java -jar bfg.jar --strip-blobs-bigger-than 100M some-big-repo.git
  

• remove the object which is causing the issue (git gc?).

Other potential issues could include:

• a git bug, since according to zlib manual, the command shouldn't abort on Z_BUF_ERROR,
• old kernel bug (<= 2.6.32-rc4).

For further readings, check this post: “pack has bad object” when pushing to remote.

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If you'd like to work with large files with Git, check the followings:

• GitHub: Announcing Git Large File Storage (LFS) & Git Large File Storage (LFS)
• Git with large files