Not able to start feature branch by selecting commit id option in SourceTree

Question

I'm working on implementing Git Flow branching strategy in my company and for that I'm testing all possible options which is provided in SourceTree GitFlow.

Two problems I've faced till now:

1. I'm trying to start a new feature branch by selecting a specified commit with value but its failing with below error sh.exe C:\Users\useraname\AppData\Local\Atlassian\SourceTree\gitflow_local\gitflow\git-flow feature start checkingfeaturebycommit d14c9a9a35d504958e3df6b42db5acfc8466bfd4 Fatal: Base 'd14c9a9a35d504958e3df6b42db5acfc8466bfd4' needs to be a branch. It does not exist and is required. Completed with errors, see above.

2. what is meaning of second option while starting feature "Working copy parent" because when I tried to start feature by selecting this option, it also failed with same error.

Please help me understand these and let me know if I'm doing anything wrong.

$ git flow release start releasefromcommit 35ec45c01872212ad5f33e068c984def5d18a284
Fatal: Base '35ec45c01872212ad5f33e068c984def5d18a284' needs to be a branch. It does not exist and is required.

Answer 1

I'm creating this answer here in case this comes up the next time I run into this. This identical question was asked on Atlassian's site too. The answer there was:

Hello! This appears to be an issue with git-flow where it will not allow commit SHAs to be used when starting a new feature (I'd suggest that you file a bug here. If you'd like to start a new feature from a branch, then I'd recommend just typing the name of the branch into the "Specified commit" box.

(emphasis mine) which worked for me.

Answer 2

Open terminal

git branch release/yourReleaseName 43331988a3b86cc7ece4d323e8ec578c65437e8847

git flow finish yourReleaseName

If you're looking for the long string, you can get it in various ways, one is to open git flow, start release, check from specific commit, select your commit, and copy and paste to notepad, and then if you cant copy and paste it to terminal, you can manually enter it (i had to do it this way)

Good luck (thank Roger for the answer)

Answer 3

This is a bug in SourceTree application and atlassian support team accepted it and disabled these options for hotfix branch in latest release but for other branches. Hopefully they will fix or disable these option for feature and release also, so no one else gets confused.

Bug Link: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Sourcetree-questions/Not-able-to-start-feature-branch-by-selecting-commit-id-option/qaq-p/674112