# fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. 8 messages from 2010-10-28 to 2015-09-09. Participants: Todd Wells, Mathias Lafeldt, Santi Béjar, SZEDER Gábor, davilda_, Jeff King, Junio C Hamano. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/25578 ## Todd Wells, 2010-10-28 13:09 Subject: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/loom.20101028T150254-457%40post.gmane.org ``` I was using GitX to prepare a commit. Something happened -- I don't know what -- and suddenly my branch only had a single commit in it that appears to contain all the files in my tree. So I went to the command line and did this: $ git reset --soft HEAD^ fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. When I do 'git log' in this branch, there's only one commit. Now, I had many commits in this branch a few minutes ago. I really, really, don't want to lose this. What steps should I take to attempt to recover? ``` ## SZEDER Gábor, 2010-10-28 13:41 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: <20101028134141.GA16149@neumann> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20101028134141.GA16149%40neumann In-Reply-To: ``` Hi Todd, On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 01:09:08PM +0000, Todd Wells wrote: > I was using GitX to prepare a commit. Something happened -- I don't > know what -- and suddenly my branch only had a single commit > in it that appears to contain all the files in my tree. So I went to the > command line and did this: > > $ git reset --soft HEAD^ > fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not > in the working tree. > > When I do 'git log' in this branch, there's only one commit. Now, I > had many commits in this branch a few minutes ago. I really, > really, don't want to lose this. > > What steps should I take to attempt to recover? Take a look at 'gitk yourbranch@{1}' or 'git log yourbranch@{1}'. If it looks like your branch's lost history, then you can recover from this situation with 'git reset --hard yourbranch@{1}'. You can read up about the details here: http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html#recovering-lost-changes HtH, Gábor ``` ## Mathias Lafeldt, 2010-10-28 13:42 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: <4CC97DC8.1010508@debugon.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/4CC97DC8.1010508%40debugon.org In-Reply-To: ``` Todd Wells wrote: > I was using GitX to prepare a commit. Something happened -- I don't > know what -- and suddenly my branch only had a single commit > in it that appears to contain all the files in my tree. So I went to the > command line and did this: > > $ git reset --soft HEAD^ > fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not > in the working tree. > > When I do 'git log' in this branch, there's only one commit. Now, I > had many commits in this branch a few minutes ago. I really, > really, don't want to lose this. > > What steps should I take to attempt to recover? Check if you can reset your HEAD to a previous state saved in your (local) reflog. See section "RefLog Shortnames" in http://progit.org/book/ch6-1.html -Mathias ``` ## Santi Béjar, 2010-10-28 13:42 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTimbOZwHDez6iAN828AoiqL%2BEvAV92-WqvhP6ZpP%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Todd Wells wrote: > I was using GitX to prepare a commit. Something happened -- I don't > know what --  and suddenly my branch only had a single commit > in it that appears to contain all  the files in my tree. So I went to the > command line and did this: > > $ git reset --soft HEAD^ > fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not > in the working tree. > > When I do 'git log' in this branch, there's only one commit. Now, I > had many commits in this branch a few minutes ago. I really, > really, don't want to lose this. > > What steps should I take to attempt to recover? You could try: git log -g which will show you the reflog, a log of recent tip commits of HEAD. You could also try to see other local branches and their reflog. If all this fails you can: git fsck --unreachable that will output all the unreachable commits/objects, those not in your branches or reflogs. Once you have the correct commit you can reset the HEAD to this commit: git reset HEAD (or with --hard as necessary). HTH, Santi ``` ## Santi Béjar, 2010-10-28 14:01 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/AANLkTikLOU6HYzDD79eDfPnicQ8X1jTkLGAikAoy3YG-%40mail.gmail.com In-Reply-To: ``` Please, don't top post, it's difficult to follow a "reversed" conversation. On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Todd Wells wrote: > Thanks all of you for your speedy responses. > git log -g does indeed show my previous commits, for example: > > Reflog: HEAD@{0} (Todd Wells ) > Reflog message: commit: convert mason template to use > ProjectService.getAllGroups() > Author: Todd Wells > Date:   Thu Oct 28 05:54:22 2010 -0700 >     convert mason template to use ProjectService.getAllGroups() > commit b80ed79669c56669f05175db9eb9eba4a5fb296e > // ...etc > > > But I'm not quite sure now if I should do  'git reset --hard yourbranch@{1}' > or 'git reset HEAD@{0}' or something else. HEAD@{0} = HEAD so for sure it is not what you want. You should first examine the commit history with "git log" or better with gitk: gitk HEAD@{1} or gitk HEAD@{2} and when you are sure: git reset --hard HEAD@{n} (Note that all local changes in the worktree will be lost). HTH, Santi ``` ## davilda_, 2015-09-09 08:34 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: <1441787643787-7639207.post@n2.nabble.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1441787643787-7639207.post%40n2.nabble.com In-Reply-To: ``` Hi, i'm new with git and i just want to cancel a commit. I just do git add and git commit. How can i canceled a commit in my case. Best regards -- View this message in context: http://git.661346.n2.nabble.com/fatal-ambiguous-argument-HEAD-unknown-revision-or-path-not-in-the-working-tree-tp5682535p7639207.html Sent from the git mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ``` ## Jeff King, 2015-09-09 09:20 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: <20150909092042.GC21892@sigill.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20150909092042.GC21892%40sigill.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: <1441787643787-7639207.post@n2.nabble.com> ``` On Wed, Sep 09, 2015 at 01:34:03AM -0700, davilda_ wrote: > i'm new with git and i just want to cancel a commit. I just do git add and > git commit. > How can i canceled a commit in my case. Usually with "git reset HEAD^". But I'm guessing from your subject line that you tried that, and it did not work because this commit is the _only_ commit in your repository (and "HEAD^", which means "the parent commit of HEAD", does not make any sense, as there is no parent). Annoyingly, I don't think there is an easy way with the current tools to handle this corner case (you want to not reset to a commit, but back to the "unborn branch" state). The "simplest" way to do that is: rm .git/refs/heads/master but that is not guaranteed to work in future versions of git, and I wouldn't recommend it in general. Probably a better workflow is to create the commit state you _do_ want (change files, "git add" them, etc), and then run "git commit --amend" to replace the bad commit. -Peff ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2015-09-09 16:24 Subject: Re: fatal: ambiguous argument 'HEAD^': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqq7fnz7e7i.fsf%40gitster.mtv.corp.google.com In-Reply-To: <20150909092042.GC21892@sigill.intra.peff.net> ``` Jeff King writes: > The "simplest" way to do that is: > > rm .git/refs/heads/master > > but that is not guaranteed to work in future versions of git, and I > wouldn't recommend it in general. Yeah, "git checkout -b" has a stronger sibling "git checkout -B" (i.e. I know that the named branch already exists, so this is not a request to create a new one, but to repoint that existing one), but there is no analogue for "git checkout --orphan". That could be worked around with something like this though: $ git checkout --orphan hu $ git branch -D master $ git checkout --orphan master As I agree with your "amending is better", I do not think allowing an easier access to such a feature is urgent or important, though. > Probably a better workflow is to create the commit state you _do_ want > (change files, "git add" them, etc), and then run "git commit --amend" > to replace the bad commit. ```