GIT pull failed: 'unable to unlink file: invalid argument'

Question

New GIT user here, managing a Moodle course web site system on a Windows server. Trying to do my first Pull update of the core code (using TortoiseGit) and it's not working. Git is unable to unlink old versions of any the 200+ files to be updated because of an "invalid argument". I have no idea what that means.

Here's what it looks like after I dismiss 210 error dialogs: tortoisegit

I've rebooted the server and scoured the web for ideas, but I'm at a loss for what to try next.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I lost hours with that error too.

In my case, I got this error because some files was locked by another program. I had to close everything then I was able to pull again.

Hope this help someone :)

Answer 2

The error message shows the file name(s) that git was unable to unlink. In windows, you can go to Start Menu > Resource Monitor > CPU tab > Associated Handles and search for the file name (not the full path), then you will get a result of the process locking that file. In my case, it was explorer.exe. So I killed that process and git worked again as expected.

I guess you can do that same using other operating systems by finding the process(es) locking the file(s).

Answer 3

Try to close any other tools while using Tortoisegit

Answer 4

I also had unlink issues when trying to pull from gitlab.

Based on ivan866's and Nicolas Leucci's answer, to resolve I simply opened my SourceTree in administrative mode which fixed my problem. I suppose SourceTree didn't have enough rights to handle the permissions correctly. Anyway it's worth a try!