Local repository is not able to pull branch from remote repository

Question

I have been using GitLab successfully with another onsite developer with small projects in C and MATLAB.

Working from home using a VPN I pushed a large LabVIEW program into a fresh project so I can work alongside another off site developer. The developer cloned the project and began work on a branch.

The issue is I have not been able to pull/fetch this branch. GitLab is showing the branches and commits that the developer has made.

I have not been long using git and so I may just be being stupid.

Git push: "fatal 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository - fatal Could not read from remote repository."

I have looked at this in particular but have not made it work, below are some of the things I have tried.

$ git remote remove somelongcode
fatal: No such remote: 'somelongcode'

---

$ git remote add origin
usage: git remote add [<options>] <name> <url>

    -f, --fetch           fetch the remote branches
    --tags                import all tags and associated objects when fetching
                          or do not fetch any tag at all (--no-tags)
    -t, --track <branch>  branch(es) to track
    -m, --master <branch>
                          master branch
    --mirror[=(push|fetch)]
                          set up remote as a mirror to push to or fetch from

---

$ git remote master --prune
error: Unknown subcommand: master
usage: git remote [-v | --verbose]
   or: git remote add [-t <branch>] [-m <master>] [-f] [--tags | --no-tags] [--mirror=<fetch|push>] <name> <url>
   or: git remote rename <old> <new>
   or: git remote remove <name>
   or: git remote set-head <name> (-a | --auto | -d | --delete | <branch>)
   or: git remote [-v | --verbose] show [-n] <name>
   or: git remote prune [-n | --dry-run] <name>
   or: git remote [-v | --verbose] update [-p | --prune] [(<group> | <remote>)...]
   or: git remote set-branches [--add] <name> <branch>...
   or: git remote get-url [--push] [--all] <name>
   or: git remote set-url [--push] <name> <newurl> [<oldurl>]
   or: git remote set-url --add <name> <newurl>
   or: git remote set-url --delete <name> <url>

    -v, --verbose         be verbose; must be placed before a subcommand
________________________
$ git fetch origin master
fatal: 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
________________________
$ git reset --hard origin/master
fatal: ambiguous argument 'origin/master': unknown revision or path not `in the working tree.`
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'

---

I can see the branch in remote. This is the most encouraging at least I can see the remote even if I cannot sync with my local repository

$ git ls-remote
From git@gitlab.com:group/project.git
somelongcode        HEAD
somelongcode        refs/heads/apploc
somelongcode        refs/heads/master

As you can see locally I cannot see the branch

---

$ git pull
From gitlab.com:group/project
 * branch            master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up to date.

---

$ git branch
* master

---

$ git remote show origin
fatal: 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

---

Answer 1

To synchronize your local repository branch list with the remote one, use git fetch

So your command should be something like:

git fetch somelongcode

Then you should have the up-to-date branch list :)

Answer 2

The structure of any git repo is the same wherever you go, you can check your local branches under the folder .git/refs/heads or by using the command git branch.

As for what's in the remote declared in your repo, you can see that in .git/refs/remotes/ or by using the command git branch -a and check the red colored lines.

Now to the subject at hand, any git repo needs to know the url and the name of whatever remote you're going to use, and you can use git remote to manage that. So if you want to list them use git remote, to list Up and Down stream of each one use git remote -v, and to add a new remote use git remote add <remote_name> <remote_url>.

The remote url is composed as follows if you are using ssh git@<server_address>:<name_space>/<repo_name>.git so it's composed of:

• server address which if you're using gitlab is gitlab.com,
• name space which is group as you mentioned, and lastly,
• repo name which in our case is project but you still need the .git extension at the end of the url.

You can also copy the url from the gitlab interface by clicking on the clone button which will show you the url with ssh and another with https.

Now if you configured your remote correctly you will need to refresh your local repository with what's in the remote by using the command git fetch <remote_name> and that will download all the branches from the remote to your .git/refs/remotes/ folder, Then if you have a branch that's there and doesn't have any mirror branch in local (.git/refs/heads) you can create it yourself to be able to add other commits on top of it by using the command git checkout -b <branch_name> <remote_name>/<branch_name>.

Answer 3

Try the below

$ git remote add origin remote/repository/URL
# Sets the new remote

$ git remote -v
# Verifies the new remote URL

Then

git pull origin branch_name

Answer 4

Hi @Yannoff and anyone else who looked at this. Thanks for you help. I think I tried nearly everything with Bash. I cloned the project on another machine and it all worked as expected. I then cloned it again on my machine and again everything worked fine. It was my original local repository that was causing the issues. I wonder whether working from home over VPN had an effect? Everything works now but not my original local repo.

However I am now clearer on how it all works with the help of the web links you gave me so it has not all been in vein!

*** I was not setting up the remote origin correctly see Yannoff's advice and the accepted answer for reasoning.***

Very good website - https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials