# Strange happening with 'git fetch' 2 messages from 2010-01-07 to 2010-01-07. Participants: David Kirk, Ilari Liusvaara. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/22120 ## David Kirk, 2010-01-07 17:59 Subject: Strange happening with 'git fetch' Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/de73f1891001070959h30e4ecebw7c852f0417647419%40mail.gmail.com ``` This is very strange, and defies the understanding of everyone in the office familiar with git.  Is it a bug, or some feature we don't understand? Basically, when I do a 'git fetch', it updates my local repository. Now nobody else is doing anything, so the remote repository does not change.  Doing another 'git fetch' should report that nothing needs to be done and nothing should change.  But instead, it reports something about the remote HEAD, and changes my local branch 'master' to some strange location!  Running 'git fetch' again restores it to the correct state, reporting that it is updating 'master'.  Repeated invocations will toggle between these two results.  Below is a transcript from the bash shell. Can someone please explain this? ---- bash console ---- dkirk@RI-ENG-21 /c/Dev/TSWeb2 (master) $ git fetch From //10.18.0.53/git/repos/WebTrading  + 03c60a4...209b0bc HEAD       -> origin/HEAD  (forced update) dkirk@RI-ENG-21 /c/Dev/TSWeb2 (master) $ git fetch From //10.18.0.53/git/repos/WebTrading  + 209b0bc...03c60a4 master     -> origin/master  (forced update) dkirk@RI-ENG-21 /c/Dev/TSWeb2 (master) $ git fetch From //10.18.0.53/git/repos/WebTrading  + 03c60a4...209b0bc HEAD       -> origin/HEAD  (forced update) dkirk@RI-ENG-21 /c/Dev/TSWeb2 (master) $ git fetch From //10.18.0.53/git/repos/WebTrading  + 209b0bc...03c60a4 master     -> origin/master  (forced update) Thanks, -David ``` ## Ilari Liusvaara, 2010-01-07 18:07 Subject: Re: Strange happening with 'git fetch' Message-ID: <20100107180742.GA27643@Knoppix> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20100107180742.GA27643%40Knoppix In-Reply-To: ``` On Thu, Jan 07, 2010 at 11:59:39AM -0600, David Kirk wrote: > This is very strange, and defies the understanding of everyone in the > office familiar with git.  Is it a bug, or some feature we don't > understand? > > Basically, when I do a 'git fetch', it updates my local repository. > Now nobody else is doing anything, so the remote repository does not > change.  Doing another 'git fetch' should report that nothing needs to > be done and nothing should change.  But instead, it reports something > about the remote HEAD, and changes my local branch 'master' to some > strange location!  Running 'git fetch' again restores it to the > correct state, reporting that it is updating 'master'.  Repeated > invocations will toggle between these two results.  Below is a > transcript from the bash shell. > > Can someone please explain this? I have seen that before. Looks like you have local branch 'HEAD' (_not_ the special ref HEAD) on remote side and that is messing it up. ls-remote'ing the repository shows 'refs/heads/HEAD', right (there's also HEAD, that's the required special ref)? -Ilari ```