# Fatal error from git bisect

2 messages from 2006-02-09 to 2006-02-09. Participants: Mark E Mason, Linus Torvalds.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/3275

## Mark E Mason, 2006-02-09 18:51

Subject: Fatal error from git bisect
Message-ID: <7E000E7F06B05C49BDBB769ADAF44D0773A48E@NT-SJCA-0750.brcm.ad.broadcom.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7E000E7F06B05C49BDBB769ADAF44D0773A48E%40NT-SJCA-0750.brcm.ad.broadcom.com

```
Hello,
 
I'm trying to use 'git bisect' and am running into the following error:

[mason@hawaii linux.git]$ git bisect reset
[mason@hawaii linux.git]$ git bisect start
[mason@hawaii linux.git]$ git bisect good
d166b5a220813a08a79312fc384d11e1c57e9072
[mason@hawaii linux.git]$ git bisect bad
a7900c9bdb64c11688719bef9f6373fbc4c276ab
Bisecting: 116 revisions left to test after this
fatal: Entry 'block/elevator.c' would be overwritten by merge. Cannot
merge.

(this is the linux-mips.org kernel repository, a7900c9b is a child of
d166b5a2).

What does this mean?  How do I get around it?
As you can probably guess, I'm a beginner to git bisect.

Thanks in advance.
Mark

```

## Linus Torvalds, 2006-02-09 19:50

Subject: Re: Fatal error from git bisect
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0602091148080.2458@g5.osdl.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.64.0602091148080.2458%40g5.osdl.org
In-Reply-To: <7E000E7F06B05C49BDBB769ADAF44D0773A48E@NT-SJCA-0750.brcm.ad.broadcom.com>

```

On Thu, 9 Feb 2006, Mark E Mason wrote:
>  
> I'm trying to use 'git bisect' and am running into the following error:
>
> fatal: Entry 'block/elevator.c' would be overwritten by merge. Cannot merge.

This seems to mean that you have a dirty block/elevator.c file. Have you 
perhaps edited it?

		Linus

```