Interactive rebase bug involving merge commits

Bailey Muckel· Nov 18, 2025, 19:15 UTC · lore

Hello,

I believe I found a bug in git. The output from `git bugreport` is below:

Thank you for filling out a Git bug report! Please answer the following questions to help us understand your issue.

What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue) I ran `git rebase -i --rebase-merges {commit hash}`, then changed the command for one of my merge commits from "merge -C ..." to "drop ..." expecting it to remove the merge commit entirely What happened instead? (Actual behavior) It output the statement "BUG: sequencer.c:2695: unexpected todo_command" and remained in an interactive rebase state until I ran "git rebase --abort" What's different between what you expected and what actually happened? I expected it to act the way it would if I deleted the entire merge commit line: remove the merge and keep both branches of the merge otherwise the same Anything else you want to add:

Please review the rest of the bug report below. You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.

[System Info]
git version:
git version 2.49.0.windows.1
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: cca1f38702730b35f52c29efd62864b85e85ddcc
sizeof-long: 4
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: D:/git-sdk-64-build-installers/usr/bin/sh
feature: fsmonitor--daemon
libcurl: 8.12.1
OpenSSL: OpenSSL 3.2.4 11 Feb 2025
zlib: 1.3.1
uname: Windows 10.0 19045 
compiler info: gnuc: 14.2
libc info: no libc information available
$SHELL (typically, interactive shell): <unset>

[Enabled Hooks]

Thank you,

Bailey Muckel (he/him)
Data Engineer
Building Service 32BJ Health Fund
23 West 18th Street, 8th Floor | New York, NY 10011-4676
Email: bmuckel@32bjfunds.com

Phillip Wood· Nov 18, 2025, 19:52 UTC · re: Bailey Muckel · lore

Re: Interactive rebase bug involving merge commits

Hi Bailey

On 18/11/2025 19:15, Bailey Muckel wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue)
> I ran `git rebase -i --rebase-merges {commit hash}`, then changed the
> command for one of my merge commits from "merge -C ..." to "drop ..."
> expecting it to remove the merge commit entirely
> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
> It output the statement "BUG: sequencer.c:2695: unexpected todo_command"

Thanks for reporting this. This bug was recently fixed by commit 4d491ade8f6 (rebase -i: permit 'drop' of a merge commit, 2025-08-06) which is included in git 2.51.1 or later.

Thanks

Phillip

Show 41 quoted lines

> and remained in an interactive rebase state until I ran "git rebase --abort"
> What's different between what you expected and what actually happened?
> I expected it to act the way it would if I deleted the entire merge
> commit line: remove the merge and keep both branches of the merge
> otherwise the same
> Anything else you want to add:
> 
> Please review the rest of the bug report below.
> You can delete any lines you don't wish to share.
> 
> 
> [System Info]
> git version:
> git version 2.49.0.windows.1
> cpu: x86_64
> built from commit: cca1f38702730b35f52c29efd62864b85e85ddcc
> sizeof-long: 4
> sizeof-size_t: 8
> shell-path: D:/git-sdk-64-build-installers/usr/bin/sh
> feature: fsmonitor--daemon
> libcurl: 8.12.1
> OpenSSL: OpenSSL 3.2.4 11 Feb 2025
> zlib: 1.3.1
> uname: Windows 10.0 19045
> compiler info: gnuc: 14.2
> libc info: no libc information available
> $SHELL (typically, interactive shell): <unset>
> 
> 
> [Enabled Hooks]
> 
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Bailey Muckel (he/him)
> Data Engineer
> Building Service 32BJ Health Fund
> 23 West 18th Street, 8th Floor | New York, NY 10011-4676
> Email: bmuckel@32bjfunds.com
>   
>