How to resolve git's “not something we can merge” error

Question

I just encountered a problem when merging a branch into master in git. First, I got the branch name by running git ls-remote. Let\'s call that branch \"branch-n

Answer 1

For me, the problem was the 'double quotation marks' into merge message. So when I removed the double mark, all magically worked. I hope to help someone. (Sorry for my poor English)

Answer 2

I had a work tree with master and an another branch checked out in two different work folders.

PS C:\rhipheusADO\Build> git worktree list
C:/rhipheusADO/Build         7d32e6e [vyas-cr-core]
C:/rhipheusADO/Build-master  91d418c [master]

PS C:\rhipheusADO\Build> cd ..\Build-master\

PS C:\rhipheusADO\Build-master> git merge 7d32e6e #Or any other intermediary commits
Updating 91d418c..7d32e6e
Fast-forward
 Pipeline/CR-MultiPool/azure-pipelines-auc.yml | 5 +++--
 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

PS C:\rhipheusADO\Build-master> git ls-remote
From https://myorg.visualstudio.com/HelloWorldApp/_git/Build
53060bac18f9d4e7c619e5170c436e6049b63f25        HEAD
7d32e6ec76d5a5271caebc2555d5a3a84b703954        refs/heads/vyas-cr-core 

PS C:\rhipheusADO\Build-master> git merge 7d32e6ec76d5a5271caebc2555d5a3a84b703954
Already up-to-date

PS C:\rhipheusADO\Build>  git push
Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To https://myorg.visualstudio.com/HelloWorldApp/_git/Build
   91d418c..7d32e6e  master -> master

If you need to just merge the latest commit:

git merge origin/vyas-cr-core 
git push

And is same as what I've always done:

git checkout master # This is needed if you're not using worktrees
git pull origin vyas-cr-core
git push

Answer 3

It's a silly suggestion, but make sure there is no typo in the branch name!

Answer 4

You might also encounter this error if you are not using origin keyword and the branch isn't one of your own.

git checkout <to-branch> 
git merge origin/<from-branch>

Answer 5

The branch which you are tryin to merge may not be identified by you git at present so perform git branch and see if the branch which you want to merge exists are not, if not then perform git pull and now if you do git branch, the branch will be visible now, and now you perform git merge <BranchName>

Answer 6

This answer is not related to the above question, but I faced a similar issue, and maybe this will be useful to someone. I am trying to merge my feature branch to master like below:

$ git merge fix-load

for this got the following error message:

merge: fix-load - not something we can merge

I looked into above all solutions, but not none of the worked.

Finally, I realized the issue cause is a spelling mistake on my branch name (actually, the merge branch name is fix-loads).