Why does git branch -t fail with “Not tracking: ambiguous information”?

Question

When I try to create a new branch tracking a remote branch, I get this:

$ git branch -t test origin/foo
error: Not tracking: ambiguous information for ref refs/r         


        

Answer 1

I got in a situation like this, but I do not know how. The listing from git branch -av showed me only a single remote tracking branch for the branch I cared about (origin/dev).

What I did to fix it was to use the hexadecimal commit hash instead of origin/dev:

git checkout -b dev abc123
git push -u origin dev

When I did the push with -u Git said Branch dev set up to track remote branch dev from origin. Subsequent pulls and pushes worked as I expected.