Why is git pull showing new branches all the time?

Question

I'm using git bash for Windows:

$ git version git version 1.8.0.msysgit.0 

Everything has been working fine for months, I've been gradually getting used to how git works, then all of a sudden, git pull is retrieving a number of "new" branches each time I try to pull:

me@MYPC /d/Projects/MyProject (master) $ git pull From github.com:ClientUsername/RepoName  * [new branch]      branch1 -> origin/branch1  * [new branch]      branch2 -> origin/branch2 Already up-to-date.  me@MYPC /d/Projects/MyProject (master) $ git pull From github.com:ClientUsername/RepoName  * [new branch]      branch1 -> origin/branch1  * [new branch]      branch2 -> origin/branch2 Already up-to-date. 

Have I configured something incorrectly? Is this normal behavior?

---

EDIT

After some helpful comments, I deleted the branch files from .git\refs\remotes\origin. I tried to pull again and got the following:

me@MyPC /d/Projects/MyProject (master) $ git pull From github.com:ClientUsername/RepoName  * [new branch]      Branch1 -> origin/Branch1  * [new branch]      Branch2 -> origin/Branch2  * [new branch]      branch1 -> origin/branch1  * [new branch]      branch2 -> origin/branch2 Already up-to-date. me@MyPC /d/Projects/MyProject (master) $ git pull From github.com:ClientUsername/RepoName  * [new branch]      Branch1 -> origin/Branch1  * [new branch]      Branch2 -> origin/Branch2 Already up-to-date. 

The only difference being the case of the branch names?

Answer 1

In my case, the issue was related to two branches having the same name (one uppercase, one lower case). Once I removed the "duplicate" branch from remote origin, I ran the following:

git fetch --prune origin 

and the [new branch] message stop showing after every pull. For documentation on prune see reference.

Answer 2

I could reproduce the behavior by having a branch not listed in .git/packed_refs and renaming its file in .git/refs/remotes/origin to the same but different case. (on NTFS filesystem). And it is cured by renaming back.

Guess if you could rename to the form that matches the remote name, it would be a fix for you.

Thinking more, and using the first form after edit:

You must have two branches with similar name just differing in case on remote!

And the problem is because they want to create the same file. You must fix it on the remote, by renaming one of the similar-named branches.