Git and nasty “error: cannot lock existing info/refs fatal”

Question

After cloning from remote git repository (at bettercodes) I made some changes, commited and tried to push:

git push origin master

Errors

Answer 1

Before pull you need to clean your local changes. following command help me to solve.

git remote prune origin

and then after

git pull origin develop

Hopes this helps!

Answer 2

This is probably resolved by now. But here is what worked for me.

1. Location:

   • If locked repository is on the server-side:

     1. ssh to your git repository on the server.
     2. Login as user which has permissions to modify the repository and navigate to the repository on your server.

   • If locked repository is local only:

     1. Open the git console and navigate to the repository directory.

     2. Run this command:

        git update-server-info
        

2. Fix the permissions on your (remote or/and local) repository if you have to. In my case I had to chmod to 777 and chown to apache:apache

3. Try to push again from the local repository:

   git push
   

Answer 3

Update:

You might need to edit your ~/.netrc file:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/git-core/+bug/293553

Original answer:

Why did you disable ssl? I think this might have to do with you not being able to push via https. I'd set it back and try to push again:

git config –global http.sslVerify true

Answer 4

This is what I did to get rid of all the lock ref issues:

git gc --prune=now
git remote prune origin

This is probably what you only need to do too.

Answer 5

In case of bettercodes.org, the solution is more poetic - the only problem may be in rights assigned to the project members. Simple members don't have write rights! Please make sure that you have the Moderator or Administrator rights. This needs to be set at bettercodes.org at the project settings by an Administrator, of course.

Answer 6

For me this worked:

git remote prune origin

Since this answer seems to help a lot of people, I dug a little bit into what actually happens here. What this will do is remove references to remote branches in the folder .git/refs/remotes/origin. So this will not affect your local branches and it will not change anything remote, but it will update the local references you have to remote branches. It seems in some cases these references can contain data Git cannot handle correctly.