# git bisect issue 2 messages from 2009-04-04 to 2009-04-04. Participants: malc@pulsesoft.com, Christian Couder. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/18710 ## malc@pulsesoft.com, 2009-04-04 09:11 Subject: git bisect issue Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.64.0904041307360.10230%40linmac.oyster.ru ``` Hello, I was trying to run git bisect today and stumbled upon this: $ git bisect start error: pathspec 'bisect' did not match any file(s) known to git. .git had some (stale?) BISECT_XXX files in it, and removing them helped. One of those (BISECT_START) consisted of a single line: "bisect". If i remember correctly i used to have a bisect branch in this particular repo. -- mailto:av1474@comtv.ru ``` ## Christian Couder, 2009-04-04 19:48 Subject: Re: git bisect issue Message-ID: <200904042148.32723.chriscool@tuxfamily.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/200904042148.32723.chriscool%40tuxfamily.org In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, Le samedi 4 avril 2009, malc@pulsesoft.com a écrit : > Hello, > > I was trying to run git bisect today and stumbled upon this: > > $ git bisect start > error: pathspec 'bisect' did not match any file(s) known to git. > > .git had some (stale?) BISECT_XXX files in it, and removing them > helped. One of those (BISECT_START) consisted of a single line: > "bisect". If i remember correctly i used to have a bisect branch > in this particular repo. When you start bisecting, the current branch is saved in .git/BISECT_START so if you started a bisection in a branch named "bisect", then "bisect" was saved in ".git/BISECT_START". Then you probably didn't use "git bisect reset" to stop bisecting, so the .git/BISECT_START file was not removed. You probably deleted the "bisect" branch and later when you started a new bisection, "git bisect" found the .git/BISECT_START file, so it thought that you were currently bisecting. It then tryed to abort the previous bisection by going back to branch saved in the .git/BISECT_START file, and that failed with the error message you saw. The error message could perhaps be improved with this patch: diff --git a/git-bisect.sh b/git-bisect.sh index e313bde..093736c 100755 --- a/git-bisect.sh +++ b/git-bisect.sh @@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ bisect_start() { then # Reset to the rev from where we started. start_head=$(cat "$GIT_DIR/BISECT_START") - git checkout "$start_head" || exit + git checkout "$start_head" -- || exit else # Get rev from where we start. case "$head" in it will give the following error message instead of the one you saw: fatal: invalid reference: bisect Regards, Christian. ```