# git submodule: update --remote --checkout + upstream branch change 1 messages from 2026-01-20 to 2026-01-20. Participants: D. Ben Knoble. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/64832 ## D. Ben Knoble, 2026-01-20 02:20 Subject: git submodule: update --remote --checkout + upstream branch change Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CALnO6CCkcp-Pj-M6yCnr3O-DJE3PedEcqGah3e%2BE9C4Awqf%2BKg%40mail.gmail.com ``` On my build of git.git origin/master (with ps/history merged in, but that shouldn't affect this), I received a confusing error today: git submodule update --remote --checkout … Unable to find refs/remotes/origin/HEAD revision in submodule path '…submod…' Turns out the upstream repository had renamed the main branch from master to main, and the git dir (.git/modules/…submod…/refs/remotes/origin) still had ref: refs/remotes/origin/main This is weird, because I could successfully "git fetch" inside the submodule, and "git ls-remote" showed HEAD on the remote pointing at the same place as refs/heads/main. In fact, I was so puzzled that I didn't understand where this error had come from (grepping in the source found builtin/submodule--helper.c; GIT_TRACE2=1 was not really any help here), nor did I have very high hopes of solving it except that I happened to know where to look for occurrences of "master" that might need changed. A simple "git -C …submod… remote set-head origin -a" solves the problem; is there something the submodule code needs to do to handle this more gracefully, such as fixing it automatically or letting the user know what possible causes are? Or something I can do to avoid this coming up with other repositories I use as submodules? -- D. Ben Knoble ```