Re: [HELP] A local branch has disappeared

From: Neil Macneale <mac4@theory.org>
Date: Jan 19, 2009, 05:37 UTC
Message-ID: <A9C9E16F-B1CC-4E0A-AEF1-426ABEF60BDF@theory.org>
In-Reply-To: <488807870901181954p558756f5v94c8a6681125e8bb@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 18, 2009, at 7:54 PM, Johnny Lee wrote:

Show 44 quoted lines

> Hi all,
>
> Today I found my current branch (named cupcake) has disappeared.
> git@tomato:~/golf$ git branch -a
>  htc_cupcake
>  tmo_cupcake
>  origin/HEAD
>  origin/cupcake
>  origin/device
>
> As you can see, there is no "*" to mark the current branch.
>
> But when I check the HEAD, it still pointed to the cupcake branch
> git@tomato:~/golf$ cat .git/HEAD
> ref: refs/heads/cupcake
>
> But when I check the ref/heads, the cupcake is missing
> git@tomato:~/golf$ ls .git/refs/heads/
> htc_cupcake  tmo_cupcake
>
> And the cupcake in still in the config:
> git@tomato:~/golf$ cat .git/config
> [core]
>        repositoryformatversion = 0
>        filemode = true
>        bare = false
>        logallrefupdates = true
>        sharedRepository = 1
> [remote "origin"]
>        url = /home/rick/golfresort/device/.git
>        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
> [branch "cupcake"]
>        remote = origin
>        merge = refs/heads/cupcake
>
> I'm confused:
> 1. I didn't do any aggressive operations. Why the branch has
> disappeared? Normally I have done these operation for this repo:
>   i. pull from parent repo
>   ii. cloned by children repo
>   iii. pulled by children repo
>   iv. pushed from children repo
> 2. Is there any way to resume the cupcake branch? Can I manually add
> the cupcake to ref/heads?

I don't know why the cupcake branch would be gone, but you can probably get something from the logs:

$ cat .git/logs/refs/heads/cupcake

The last line should tell you what commit you were at before it was destroyed. Then you can create the branch again.

$ git checkout -b cupcake <hash in the log>

Hope that helps, Neil