git rebase: “error: cannot stat 'file': Permission denied”

Question

I\'m using git, and made a small commit followed by a large one. I decided to use git rebase to squash the two commits together before pushing them. (I\'ve ne

Answer 1

Same issue on Windows 10 64 Bit, running Git Bash version 2.9.0.windows1 Using Atom as my editor.

This worked for me: I added the Git software folder (for me, this was C:\Program Files\Git) to the exclusions for Windows Defender.

After the exclusion was added, git checkout 'file' worked fine.

Answer 2

Just close your IDE (VISUAL STUDIO/ATOM etc). It might work

Answer 3

This error can also be caused by the fact that files are still "locked" because of prior git actions. It has to do with how the Windows filesystem layer works. I once read a nice explanation on this, but I can't remember where.

In that case however, since it is basically a race condition, all you have to do is continue your interrupted rebase process. Unfortunately this happens to me all the time, so I wrote this little dangerous helper to keep my rebases going:

#!/bin/sh

set -e

git checkout .
git clean -df
git rebase --continue

If you want to be extra sure, you can use git rebase --edit-todo to check if the next commit to be applied is really the one that failed to be applied before. Use git clean -dn to make sure you do not delete any important files.

Answer 4

Try closing any programs that have the folder open, such as editors, explorer windows, command prompts, and FTP programs. This always fixes the issue for me on Windows.

Answer 5

If you're running webpack shut it down. Shut down your IDE as well. Should work fine after doing those things.

Answer 6

I've just had this problem. The thing is - if you had opened file, that was removed\replaced after rebase (you had a branch which doesn't have a this file anymore), the git-system corrupts. So i closed all opened files and then tryied to checkout on some other branch