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Repairing fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref (git checkout of svn remote)

Subject: Repairing fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref (git checkout of svn remote)

## tl;dr

3 messages between Oct 6, 2008 and Oct 7, 2008.

replies: 2people: 2as markdown or json

Jeff Kowalczyk· Oct 6, 2008, 14:00 UTC · lore

To test a particular upstream revision, on a git svn remote checkout (i.e. branches/1.2, 76c7af2...), I checked out the equivalent of HEAD^^ (git checkout 4a3d99c0c9).

Now back at the branch tip, I get fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref on git svn rebase:

(4a3d99c...) $ git checkout 76c7af2 HEAD is now at 76c7af2... Minor changes to CONTRIBUTORS (76c7af2...) $ git svn rebase fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref Current branch HEAD is up to date. Segmentation fault

How can I manually correct ref HEAD?
Thanks.
(The segmentation fault is a separate issue)
Shawn O. Pearce· Oct 6, 2008, 14:02 UTC · re: Jeff Kowalczyk · lore

Re: Repairing fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref (git checkout of svn remote)

Jeff Kowalczyk <jtk@yahoo.com> wrote:
Show 14 quoted lines
> To test a particular upstream revision, on a git svn remote checkout (i.e.
> branches/1.2, 76c7af2...), I checked out the equivalent of HEAD^^ (git
> checkout 4a3d99c0c9).
> 
> Now back at the branch tip, I get fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref
> on git svn rebase: 
> 
> (4a3d99c...) $ git checkout 76c7af2
> HEAD is now at 76c7af2... Minor changes to CONTRIBUTORS
> (76c7af2...) $ git svn rebase
> fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref Current branch HEAD is up to date.
> Segmentation fault
> 
> How can I manually correct ref HEAD?

git checkout whateverbranchyouwereonbefore git svn rebase

-- 
Shawn.
Jeff Kowalczyk· Oct 7, 2008, 16:49 UTC · re: Shawn O. Pearce · lore

Re: Repairing fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref (git checkout of svn remote)

On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 07:02:43 -0700, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:
Show 18 quoted lines
> Jeff Kowalczyk <jtk@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> To test a particular upstream revision, on a git svn remote checkout (i.e.
>> branches/1.2, 76c7af2...), I checked out the equivalent of HEAD^^ (git
>> checkout 4a3d99c0c9).
>> 
>> Now back at the branch tip, I get fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref
>> on git svn rebase: 
>> 
>> (4a3d99c...) $ git checkout 76c7af2
>> HEAD is now at 76c7af2... Minor changes to CONTRIBUTORS
>> (76c7af2...) $ git svn rebase
>> fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref Current branch HEAD is up to date.
>> Segmentation fault
>> 
>> How can I manually correct ref HEAD?
> 
> git checkout whateverbranchyouwereonbefore
> git svn rebase

Thanks, and the other svn remotes are working fine. I still have the problem on the svn remote 'branches/1.2'. The following illustrates:

  (1.2_mybranch) $ git checkout 1.2
  Note: moving to "1.2" which isn't a local branch
  If you want to create a new branch from this checkout, you may do so
  (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:
    git checkout -b <new_branch_name>
  HEAD is now at 76c7af2... Minor changes to CONTRIBUTORS
  (76c7af2...) $ git svn fetch
  	M	CONTRIBUTORS
  	M	LedgerSMB/AM.pm
  r2353 = ddd452af128f9b4698a1c1d6cc7fe2f23a0e6c90 (1.2)
  	M	LedgerSMB/AM.pm
  r2354 = fc6857004eeabf6963a9b2856f51db8842c00b70 (1.2)
  Segmentation fault
  (fc68570...) $ git checkout 1.2_print_pdf_default 
  Previous HEAD position was fc68570... (commit message snip)
  Switched to branch "1.2_print_pdf_default"
  (1.2_print_pdf_default) $ git svn rebase
  First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
  Applying: naive replacement to option selected value="pdf" where PDF is format option,
  Segmentation fault
  (76c7af2...) $ git svn rebase
  fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref
  First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
  Fast-forwarded HEAD to refs/remotes/1.2.
  Segmentation fault

This last git svn rebase on 'branches/1.2' (whether it's correct procedure or not for a svn remote) used to work without the error until I issued that one command (git checkout 4a3d99c0c9).

Thanks for any suggestions.

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