fatal: Failed to resolve HEAD as a valid ref

Question

I am getting fatal: Failed to resolve HEAD as a valid ref. whenever I try to commit.

I have tried

echo ref: refs/heads/master >.git/HEAD

but it's not working

Also tried

git commit

it's not working either from below the sources.

Git 'fatal: No such ref: HEAD'

git tag: fatal: Failed to resolve 'HEAD' as a valid ref

Please help. All my commit history is also gone.

hi @Flows its giving same "fatal: Failed to resolve HEAD as a valid ref." if I try git log then its giving me fatal: your current branch appears to be broken — idurvesh, Jun 02 '16 at 14:46
Looking around internet, I found it may be due to permission access. Could you give 777 permissions to the `.git` folder recursively ? — Flows, Jun 02 '16 at 14:55
I think 777 command is for remote directory? My problem is locally...getting this error when I do commit.... — idurvesh, Jun 02 '16 at 15:01
I know the problem is usually on remote repository but you can try that in your local repository too. — Flows, Jun 02 '16 at 15:22
Assuming you can use command line, be sure to have root permission, or connect with sudo user. Move to your git repository (`cd`) and type `sudo chmod 777 -R .git`. — Flows, Jun 02 '16 at 15:34

score 69 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 24 '21 at 19:53

69

I have also encountered the same issue, and have resolved it as follows:

Clone your same project in some other folder.
Copy the (hidden) .git folder of the cloned project.
Finally replace the .git folder of the original project with the one that you've have copied.

Edit

Why does this happen?

Broken git repositories are often the result of file system corruption due to abrupt power failure or other abnormalities.
Since git stores all the information inside .git folder and if they are corrupted git can no longer recognize the repository.

Caveats

Everything in your previous .git folder will be gone. Configurations like remote reference name(s) must be set up again.

edited Aug 24 '21 at 19:53

Jovial Joe Jayarson

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answered Jun 16 '16 at 05:55

Pravesh Khatri

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2

This actually worked for me too, I had a repo that randomly could no longer find any branches (not even master), but nothing else I did (git checkout master, git checkout -, etc) worked. A solution as simple as recloning and then copying the git folder fixed it. This even let me keep my changes, so I didn't need to redo them. – CDerrig Mar 05 '17 at 21:06
where can I find the .git folder? – Andrey Solera May 22 '19 at 04:28
@Andrea: Go to to your application directory and type `ls -a`. you'll find one. – Pravesh Khatri May 22 '19 at 07:51
@PraveshKhatri are you cloning from origin? – Jacques Oct 03 '22 at 08:09
Is there any risk of losing files/changes using this approach? – Jacques Oct 03 '22 at 08:29
@Jacques, yes it’s cloned from origin, and yes there is a risk. If you have commits that are not pushed or you have stash, you’ll not get again there. But if you have made current changes, you’ll be able to get them as diff. – Pravesh Khatri Oct 09 '22 at 11:00

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '20 at 23:03

9

I got this issue due a disk failure. I know this is an old question but maybe it can help someone. In my case I had a local branch where I was working on before my repo got corrupted so re-cloning the repo was not suitable for me. Any answer here or in other post helped me, except this little piece of code I found here. I just ran this command in the root of my repo:

echo ref: refs/heads/master >.git/HEAD

After that, I was able to excecute, git branch, git commit and all other git commands.

I hope this can help someone!

answered Jul 27 '20 at 23:03

Yasiel Cabrera

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Sorry to say, but this issue actually made issues worse for me, now I see: `fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git` – mfisher91 Jan 22 '21 at 20:09
my guy you deserve an upvote – da coconut Sep 11 '22 at 11:27

score 6 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 12 '18 at 16:08

My problem was with

git init
git add .

Tried

git reset
  fatal: Failed to resolve 'HEAD' as a valid ref.
git reset --hard
  fatal: Failed to resolve 'HEAD' as a valid ref.

Solved with

git rm -r --cached .

Enviroment

git version 1.7.5.4

Ubuntu 11.10

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 14 '19 at 14:20

I had this problem after a Blue Screen of Death incident - so it was similar to what Sudip Bhandari said above.

I looked in .git/refs/heads/<mybranch> and found that the entry was corrupted (illegible). This file is supposed to contain the full commit-id of the HEAD branch.
I cloned a new repository and copied .git/refs/heads/<mybranch> from the new checkout over the corrupted one (I guess I could've just repaired it by pasting in a recent commit-id from stash or whatever).
back in the original repository, I did git rm -r --cached . and git reset --hard to clean up and then found all was back to normal again.

I just did the second step above and all was fixed. – daveywc Sep 14 '22 at 06:49 — daveywc, Sep 14 '22 at 06:49

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 23 '18 at 12:28

3

In my case, I ended up with two branches with the same name after a branch renaming. By removing one of them in .git/refs/heads it all went back to normal.

answered Mar 23 '18 at 12:28

Michael Schmid

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score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 26 '21 at 08:13

0

Just remove the files under .git/refs/heads. It works for me

answered Apr 26 '21 at 08:13

Amit Jain

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score 0 · Answer 7 · edited May 10 '21 at 03:15

0

Backup your existing .git folder.
Clone your project from git repository into new folder.
Copy .git from new project folder and replace your original .git folder.

edited May 10 '21 at 03:15

Simas Joneliunas

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answered May 09 '21 at 11:51

user15878180

1

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jul 08 '21 at 07:39

WHY - fatal: Failed to resolve HEAD as a valid ref?

git is not able to figure out the reference and you may see this issue if the reference head is corrupted.

Suppose originally you checked out a feature branch out of the master branch and because of some failure you hit this issue. You can check the ref of the header file it should be corrupted or no value in it. Ideally, this file supposes to keep the commit hash value.

cat .git/refs/heads/<my-branch>

SOLUTION - Replacing the corrupted ref or ref value will solve the problem.

Goto .git/ref/heads/ and check if you already have some branch there and copy the commit hash value to your branch.

cat .git/refs/heads/<branch_with_commit_details> > .git/refs/heads/<my-branch>

OR you can clone the source code in another directory and copy the same hash value to my-branch

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 11 '22 at 03:30

0

In my case I just needed to do a git push in the main folder. I used git bash for this.

answered Aug 11 '22 at 03:30

MATCH

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 16 '23 at 10:08

Another solution for those who don't want to work on a new folder or clone again, just delete the .git folder, for windows users it may not show in the file explorer and deleting from cmd may be a problem, i dont know how to go about that. For me i use WSL so i can just switch between linux and windows. Type rm -fr .git to delete it. then start out like a new git repo with git init, git remote add origin, git branch -m (to what it was), git add ., git commit, git push origin branchName --force (it will raise an error if you don't force) then you will be back to speed

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Jun 16 '23 at 19:16

Solution which preserves your Git history and local changes.

delete your .git folder
open command line
git init
git add origin [REMOTE_REPOSITORY_URL]
git origin fetch
git reset --soft origin/[BRANCH_NAME] -> this forces your local branch to be exactly like the remote branch except it will not overwrite your currently uncommitted changes.
git add .
Check results with git status

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jun 29 '23 at 09:32

0

In my case, I was working with submodules and did not commit my changes yet. After commit, it starts to behave normal.

answered Jun 29 '23 at 09:32

LCoelho

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score -3 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 20 '19 at 05:07

-3

The best solution for this problem:

'fatal: Failed to resolve HEAD as a valid ref'

Open the project on Eclipse IDE
Goto project Team menu and select Switch to, finally you can switch your current detached branch to your choice now.

As attached screenshot below:

answered Jun 20 '19 at 05:07

Chiranjhivi Ghimire

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The user didn't mention Eclipse. – mfisher91 Jan 22 '21 at 20:11

fatal: Failed to resolve HEAD as a valid ref

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