How do I fix “remote: fatal error in commit_refs” errors trying to push with Git?

Question

When I try to push to master I get:

remote: fatal error in commit_refs

How can I solve this?

Answer 1

Make sure your repo is online.

I got this error today when attempting to push to github and then couldn't even browse the site without getting their unicorn error message.

Answer 2

In my case I suspect a hung git process was causing the problem; I killed it and retried and the problem went away.

Answer 3

Try rebase the current branch on top of the upstream branch after pull, e.g.

git pull origin master -r

then push it again:

git push origin master

Answer 4

I raised this with GitHub in relation to http://blastedbio.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/sync-github-mirror-with-cron.html and it turned out to be due to protected branch settings. GitHub have improved the error message:

$ git push mirror master
Counting objects: 391, done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (391/391), done.
Writing objects: 100% (391/391), 99.28 KiB | 0 bytes/s, done.
Total 391 (delta 298), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: error: GH006: Protected branch update failed for refs/heads/master.
remote: error: You're not authorized to push to this branch. Visit https://help.github.com/articles/about-protected-branches/ for more information.
To git@github.com:HuttonICS/biopython.git
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (protected branch hook declined)
error: failed to push some refs to 'git@github.com:HuttonICS/biopython.git'

If you try again now you ought to get a more constructive error report. In my case I needed to adjust my protected branch settings as per https://help.github.com/articles/about-protected-branches/

Answer 5

From my experience, there is now (2019) some rate limit on GitHub that causes this problem for me when mass-pushing tens of huge repositories. It can also cause "cannot read" problem in random cases.

When I delay for 30 seconds before each push, both problems go away and I can continue with hundreds of repos without a glitch (sigh, don't even ask).

Answer 6

In my case, GitHub was down by the time I was trying to push.

Just check https://www.githubstatus.com/ to know about GitHub site status.

When it's up you'll be able to push.