fatal: bad object xxx

Question

I tried reverting to a previous git commit with:

git revert xxx

I\'m now receiving this error as a response:

fatal: bad object          


        

Answer 1

I just ran into the same error (bad object [hash]) while attempting to merge from a branch my client didn't know about. (Similar to PrzeoR's case, but instead of needing a pull I needed to fetch)

In my case I needed to run git fetch to re-sync my client to the state of the server. Posting this here in case anyone reaches this thread the same way I did and could benefit from this insight.

git pull
git cherry-pick [hash]
fatal: bad object [hash]
git fetch
remote: Counting objects: 8, done. (etc.)
From github.com:repo/branch
 * [new branch] branchname

git cherry-pick [hash]
[success]

Answer 2

The reason I ran into it was simple. I was switching back and forth between the main repository and a submodule. I tried to do a diff between one hash (in the main repository) and another that I copied from SourceTree, thinking it was an easy to get the old HEAD (I had regressed one revision to track down a regression). The old HEAD hash I grabbed was that of a submodule, and git diff was put out with me for feeding it garbage. That's how I ended up here, and that's when I realized it was operator error. If your hash is from a different repository git will scold you with this message. However, if you do feed it garbage, would it not be better to report "XXX not a revision in this repository"? It is every bit as general an error message as "bad object" and quite a bit less likely to send someone to stack overflow for answers. I wonder if the folks in the git community would accept that pull request...

Answer 3

I ran into the same error when trying to cherry-pick (on A) the commit of another branch ( B). Issue was stupid, simply forgot to git push the commit (B).

Answer 4

I got this error while trying to cherry-pick a commit whose hash I had copied from GitHub. This commit was on a branch that I hadn't pulled, just like PrzeoR.

Unlike PrzeoR a git fetch didn't help at first because the branch had been deleted on GitHub. Fortunately I was able to find the corresponding (closed) Pull Request and to restore the branch on GitHub.

Answer 5

I don't know the exact reason why that happens. For me, it's because I forget to pull the entire repository to my local. I have 2 or more path, and each path pulls from different branch

/path/branch_a/ -> pulled from branch A
/path/branch_b/ -> pulled from branch B

on branch A, I made a few modification, and commit as usual. I want that commit (for example the commit ID is abcdef123) appears on branch B, so I use

$ cd /path/branch_b/
$ git branch
  master
  branch_a
* branch_b 

$ git cherry-pick abcdef123

This gives me that kind of error. So I need to pull the entire repository before getting that commit

$ git pull
remote: Counting objects: 257, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (58/58), done.
remote: Total 216 (delta 187), reused 186 (delta 158)
Receiving objects: 100% (216/216), 53.13 KiB | 43 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (187/187), completed with 38 local objects.
From github.com:username/my_repo
   abcdef3..80c0d68  branch_a    -> origin/branch_a
Already up-to-date.

$ git cherry-pick abcdef123 
[branch_b ccddeef] Some commit message
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Answer 6

you need to do git fetch to get the latest commits in sync with local

git fetch

then do

git revert