Howto debug: Git pull hangs during git pull (always at 54%)

Question

I added two large files to my repository (150MB each) and now git pull always hangs at 54%. I checked the network using ping, tried using a different one, I did a git fsck etc. Nothing helps.

• How can I debug this?

• Is there a way to just fetch one of the large files at a time? The problem is that my local git does not know of the last commit =-(

Answer 1

But even after removing the two files from the remote repository I cannot pull.

What means did you use to "remove the two files" ?

You would need to remove them from all commits in the history of your repository.

To do this, see for example : How to remove/delete a large file from commit history in Git repository?

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To check if your git pull is really stalled or just very slow : check the network traffic between your compouter and the server which hosts the central repo.

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If you have another way to get the 2 big files (e.g : copy them into your local repository from a usb stick ...) you can run git add (do not run git commit) on these files from your local repository, and then git reset . to unstage them.

This should add these files in the list of known objects in your local repo, and git pull should not need to download them again.