Git fatal: Reference has invalid format: 'refs/heads/master

Question

I am using Dropbox to sync a git repository, but now when I try and push I am getting an error:

fatal: Reference has inval         


        

Answer 1

I was getting same error

fatal: Reference has invalid format: 'refs/heads/somebranch (1)'

for the following command

git branch

Then, I searched for erroneous name (branch name followed by (1) ) using the command

find . -name 'somebranch (1)'

And it showed the following result

./.git/refs/heads/somebranch (1)

Which is some duplicated version of somebranch IMO. So, I removed this by executing the find command following by delete

find . -name 'somebranch (1)' -print -exec rm -rf {} \;

Then the branch command run successfully

git branch

Answer 2

Try a git checkout master first to get on the healthy, well-named branch.

Answer 3

This also happen to our team when my colleague push his changes and shutdown the PC before Dropbox get updated.

I solved it so simply.

Just deleted the conflicted copy. (XXXX's conflicted copy yyyy-mm-dd)

And pull it normally.

Note that my colleague had the changes before messed up. And he push his changes again. This time no shutdown. :)

Answer 4

I was able to delete all the conflicted files from my .git folder, but I continued to get errors about files that no longer existed.

The fix for me was opening up .git/refs/packed_refs and deleting lines that contained the text "conflicted".

Answer 5

I encounterd the similar error such as

fatal: Reference has invalid format: 'refs/heads/user-search-api (Sithu's conflicted copy 2016-01-08)'

Simply deletion of the file .git/refs/heads/user-search-api (Sithu's conflicted copy 2016-01-08) in the remote Dropbox repository did solve the problem.

Answer 6

For me it was giving error: fatal: Reference has invalid format: 'refs/tags/r0.2:3'

You can go to /.git/packed_refs file and delete the line for refs/tags/r0.2:3

Then it started working. But why it happened in the first place I don't know.