Git will not init/sync/update new submodules

Question

I had this same problem - it turned out that the .gitmodules file was committed, but the actual submodule commit (i.e. the record of the submodule's commit ID) wasn't.

Adding it manually seemed to do the trick - e.g.:

git submodule add http://github.com/sciyoshi/pyfacebook.git external/pyfacebook

(Even without removing anything from .git/config or .gitmodules.)

Then commit it to record the ID properly.

Adding some further comments to this working answer: If the git submodule init or git submodule update does'nt work, then as described above git submodule add url should do the trick. One can cross check this by

 git config --list

and one should get an entry of the submodule you want to pull in the result of the git config --list command. If there is an entry of your submodule in the config result, then now the usual git submodule update --init should pull your submodule. To test this step, you can manually rename the submodule and then updating the submodule.

 mv yourmodulename yourmodulename-temp
 git submodule update --init

To find out if you have local changes in the submodule, it can be seen via git status -u ( if you want to see changes in the submodule ) or git status --ignore-submodules ( if you dont want to see the changes in the submodule ).

git version 2.7.4. This command updates local code git submodule update --init --force --remote

Had the same issue, when git ignored init and update commands, and does nothing.

HOW TO FIX

1. Your submodule folder should be committed into git repo
2. It shouldn't be in .gitignore

If that requirements met, it will work. Otherwise, all commands will execute without any messages and result.

If you did all that, and it still doesn't work:

1. Add submodule manually, e.g. git submodule add git@... path/to
2. git submodule init
3. git submodule update
4. commit and push all files - .gitmodules and your module folder (note, that content of folder will not commit)
5. drop your local git repo
6. clone a new one
7. ensure that .git/config doesn't have any submodules yet
8. Now, git submodule init - and you will see a message that module registered
9. git submodule update - will fetch module
10. Now look at .git/config and you will find registered submodule

I had the same problem but none of the solutions above helped. The entries in the .gitmodules and in .git/config were right but the command git submodules update --init --recursive was doing nothing. I also removed the submodule directory and did run git submodules update --init --recursive and got the submodule directory back but with exactly the same commit as before.

I found the answer on this page. The command is:git submodule update --remote

There seems to be a lot of confusion here (also) in the answers.

git submodule init is not intended to magically generate stuff in .git/config (from .gitmodules). It is intended to set up something in an entirely empty subdirectory after cloning the parent project, or pulling a commit that adds a previously non-existing submodule.

In other words, you follow a git clone of a project that has submodules (which you will know by the fact that the clone checked out a .gitmodules file) by a git submodule update --init --recursive.

You do not follow git submodule add ... with a git submodule init (or git submodule update --init), that isn't supposed to work. In fact, the add will already update the appropriate .git/config if things work.

EDIT

If a previously non-existing git submodule was added by someone else, and you do a git pull of that commit, then the directory of that submodule will be entirely empty (when you execute git submodule status the new submodule's hash should be visible but will have a - in front of it.) In this case you need to follow your git pull also with a git submodule update --init (plus --recursive when it's a submodule inside a submodule) in order to get the new, previously non-existing, submodule checked out; just like after an initial clone of a project with submodules (where obviously you didn't have those submodules before either).