Git Checkout warning: unable to unlink files, permission denied

Question

I am aware that there are similar issues about git relating to the 'unable to unlink' warning, but I have not been able to use them.

The main difference is that this happened when I have not been dealing with submodules in any way (I have never dealt with them before). I created a branch called 'upgrade', deleted my old framework files, and copied in the new ones. I used git add -A, then committed everything. When I tried to checkout the trunk branch, it responded with the following errors:

warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/sk/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/sv/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/zh/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/zh_cn/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/zh_tw/index.php: Permission denied

...etc. There are hundreds of them.

At first I thought this was simply a permissions problem, and so I added group write permissions to the entire requirements directory recursively, but there was no change.

Edit: As suggested in an answer below, I attempted to do the same thing but with everything else closed. I had no more luck than before.

This issue is particularly debilitating as I cannot move to trunk to get back to normal development.

possible duplicate of [Git push error: Unable to unlink old (Permission denied)](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11774397/git-push-error-unable-to-unlink-old-permission-denied) — That Brazilian Guy, Apr 15 '15 at 19:23
I solved it with a simple `sudo chown -R username directory` — Stephen Corwin, Apr 29 '16 at 18:53

score 118 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 19 '13 at 13:15

118

In my first encounter with this error my user had rights to "write" to the file but not the containing directory. Check the permissions of the directory containing the file.

answered Apr 19 '13 at 13:15

Elijah Lynn

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Oh my, too funny, I just came across this answer today and then I realized it was my own! Nonetheless, it worked again! – Elijah Lynn Aug 11 '14 at 16:51
Ok, it happend to me on windows 10, i go to the main project folder. and add FOR ALL POSSIBLE USERS, all permissions. So for system, administator, users, all possibilities. Apply chnages. And it seems to work, somehow maybe with windows 10 update, even if we dont create new user, we are threated like the new one, without permissions. For example i have some wird name S-1-15-32..... Not the login name that i have when we unlock our laptop. – Jakub S. Jun 19 '19 at 09:42

VonC · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-22T20:24:34.500

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I usually see that kind of error when there is a process not releasing the handle of those files.

Make sure nothing is running, and then try your checkout again.

Note: it can also be related with the way Git has been installed (on Windows, UAC can generate problem if msysgit is installed in C:\Program or C:\Program Files, see "msysgit - sh.exe - fork: Permission denied - Vista 64 bit" and comment 2 of issue 437)

Note: as illustrated below, a common other cause of the problem is rights issue on the directory (wrong owner), not necessarily on the file that can't be unlinked.

edited Oct 22 '18 at 20:24

answered Aug 26 '11 at 03:58

VonC

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I'm on Ubuntu, to clear that up. And unfortunately I'm only in this web browser and my console, which has one tab open to the relevant directory (and two open quite elsewhere). – Paragon Aug 26 '11 at 04:11
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@Paragon: even on unix, you can have handle issues. Otherwise, this should be a permission issue of some kind. You should be able to force the checkout though. `git checkout -f master` – VonC Aug 26 '11 at 05:37
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+1 in my case it was the folder sharing with an active VM which prohibited discard of files in git on the host system. Drove me nuts, so thanks for the hint! – Jook Jul 02 '13 at 10:56
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Same issue. Running Process Explorer > Ctrl+F > - will display process, which keep this file opened. – setevoy Jul 22 '15 at 14:39
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GitExtensions displayed this error when attempting to fetch all... I also had GitKraken open. Once I closed GitKraken the fetch all worked without error. – mkaj Feb 02 '17 at 01:08
I had this problem at work and it was due to the fact that I had permission on the project directory but not the directory it was in – Robert Johnstone Jul 13 '17 at 11:34
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Since this is the accepted answer it would be good to add info on the common other cause of the problem. In most cases on Unix it appears to be a rights issue on the directory (the wrong owner), not necessarily on the file that can't be unlinked. The answers and comments below seem to suggest that this is a very common cause for looking up this question here. – The Coprolal Oct 22 '18 at 14:50
@TheCoprolal Interesting. Can you edit the answer? I will review your edit. – VonC Oct 22 '18 at 16:26
Same here with a `.db3` file. I had an SQLite browser running in the background with the file opened in it. As soon as I closed the software, no more issue. – maxpower9000 Jun 03 '20 at 11:13

rtconner · Answer 3 · 2013-02-05T16:55:13.047

35

"Unlink" essentially means "delete file" in this case.

This error is not caused by git itself. You should have similar errors deleting those files manually, in a command line or file explorer.

edited Feb 05 '13 at 16:55

answered Dec 21 '12 at 18:12

rtconner

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In my first encounter with this error my user had rights to "write" to the file but the containing directory did not. – Elijah Lynn Dec 26 '12 at 17:18
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@Elijah: Thank You! That's what it was for me. – Jesse Lee Feb 27 '13 at 16:13
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In my case I found the file in question was locked by another application. Closing the application freed the file and allowed the checkout to proceed. – Simon Elms Mar 01 '13 at 00:07

score 34 · Answer 4 · answered May 20 '14 at 08:08

34

You don't have the access permission, maybe because you are not the owner.

Fix by changing the owner to yourself:

sudo chown -R your_login_name /path/to/folder

answered May 20 '14 at 08:08

Vince Yuan

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On my local development machine, the files in question had been originally created by my local apache server, so were owned by the www-data user. Once I chown'd them to my own account, everything worked normally again. "Permission Denied" was the real issue. The "unable to unlik" was just a red herring. – Dale C. Anderson Feb 24 '15 at 21:31

score 22 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 18 '13 at 23:11

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I was having the issue with a default-settings.php file in drupal 7. In this case I wasn't able to delete it or revert it just like @rtconner said. I didn't have an application or anything using this file, and it ended up being a permissions error.

I added chmod 777 * to the folder and then I was able to revert it no problem.

answered Apr 18 '13 at 23:11

Rob Erskine

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While you might not want a `777` on any folder. This did solve my problem, but I quickly changed it back to default after it was solved. Thanks! – Bram Mar 24 '16 at 20:53

score 13 · Answer 6 · edited Jan 04 '16 at 09:44

13

You can change the write permissions to get it done.

sudo chmod -R ug+w .

This command will give 'w' permissions to all the folders in the current directory.

edited Jan 04 '16 at 09:44

Tunaki

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answered Jan 04 '16 at 09:36

Rajendra kumar Vankadari

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davetapley · Answer 7 · 2016-08-02T17:31:08.897

This can also occur when:

You ran a process inside a Docker container, and:
Some files were generated by that process, and:
The destination of the files is mounted as a volume on the Docker host, and:
You are running git on the Docker host.

If this is the case, stage the files you wish to commit and run:

git diff --name-only --cached | xargs ls -l

Files which meet the above criteria will be prefixed with:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root ...

They are owned by root and not writable, which is not good. To fix that run:

 git diff --name-only --cached | xargs -i sh -c 'sudo chown $USER:$USER {}; chmod +w {}'

A cleaner solution would probably be to use the --user option, see this for Docker and this for Docker compose.

Learn OpenGL ES · Answer 8 · 2016-11-15T14:48:20.917

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I ran into this problem whenever running "git repack" or "git gc" on my OS X machines, even when running git with admin privileges, and I finally solved it after coming across this page: http://hints.macworld.com/comment.php?mode=view&cid=1734

The fix is to open a terminal, go to your git repo, cd into the .git folder, and then do:

chflags -R nouchg *

If that was the issue, then after that, your git commands will work as normal.

edited Nov 15 '16 at 14:48

answered Oct 23 '14 at 23:27

Learn OpenGL ES

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The macworld link is no longer valid. Here's an updated ref: http://superuser.com/a/40754 – webb Mar 10 '16 at 04:23

score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Aug 20 '13 at 04:46

4

To those who are using Intellij, as @rtconner said this problem is not caused by git. Since your IDE is locked a file(s) git cannot un-link it. So, you need to close your IDE and then try to merge (or whatever you like) it via command line.

answered Aug 20 '13 at 04:46

Hesam

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That was it. Happened with Android Development, as AndroidStudio is Intellij. – Reinherd Dec 16 '13 at 10:57

score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 14 '16 at 08:05

3

on terminal on mac i just do this

sudo git checkout . ( to clean up everything )

and then

sudo git pull origin

answered Jul 14 '16 at 08:05

Jry

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score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 13 '13 at 14:47

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In my case it was a ":" character in a folder name prevenitng the git repo to checkout on windows.

answered Nov 13 '13 at 14:47

simonC

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score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Dec 19 '16 at 07:30

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I had this error inside a virtual machine (running Ubuntu), when I tried to do git reset --hard.

The fix was simply to run git reset --hard from the OS X host machine instead.

answered Dec 19 '16 at 07:30

Henrik N

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score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 03 '20 at 23:39

In my case, my Windows directory is under the Dropbox folder. It is not a Git-specific issue. When a file (in this case, the lock file) has just been created, it takes Dropbox another second to do the synchronization. During that time, the file is in use by Dropbox, and any 3rd party program (in this case, Git) cannot delete the file.

My solution is to quit Dropbox and therefore avoiding the behind-the-scenes magic of Dropbox's file synch.

score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Jul 19 '17 at 20:48

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None of the other suggestions worked for me, but this did:

sudo git reflog expire --expire=now --all && sudo git gc --prune=now --aggressive

answered Jul 19 '17 at 20:48

0x1mason

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Jan 30 '14 at 09:55

I have encountered this error and it is caused by wrong "owner/group" of the file/folder. You must seek assistance to your server admin to change the "owner/group" of this file/folder and retry using "git pull" again. Or if you are a sudoer, just sudo chown "your owner name / your group name" and try again pulling your repository. Try it, it works 100% to me!

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Jul 02 '14 at 11:19

0

Make sure that any associated processes or threads are not running and perform end task or force quit as necessary.

Make sure you change the ownership permission.

answered Jul 02 '14 at 11:19

Creative_Cimmons

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score 0 · Answer 17 · edited Dec 22 '14 at 12:35

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Just in general, if this happens in Windows, and you are using tortoisegit, it is the status cache of tortoisegit. Kill that process and it will be freed.

edited Dec 22 '14 at 12:35

felipe.zkn

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answered Jul 11 '14 at 15:19

WiseStrawberry

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You can actually disable the status cache of TortoiseGit completely, and it's generally something that I would recommend. It's often the cause of a lot of unexpected file locks, and it tends to be much more trouble then it's worth. Just use `git status` from the command line instead. – Jul 11 '14 at 16:20

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Feb 10 '15 at 20:25

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I just had to switch user from ubuntu to my actual user name that I'd first done stuff under. That fixed it.

answered Feb 10 '15 at 20:25

Marc

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and what about the windows users? – Herr Nentu' Jul 27 '15 at 12:06
The OP was on Ubuntu. I wouldn't have commented on a Windows thread. – Marc Jul 28 '15 at 20:02

score 0 · Answer 19 · answered Feb 27 '15 at 15:17

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Solved for me by setting my git client (GitExtensions) to always run in admin mode.

answered Feb 27 '15 at 15:17

frodo2975

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score 0 · Answer 20 · answered May 26 '15 at 07:16

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I had that problem while using IntelliJ (14.1.3 Ultimate), I wanted to revert changes in some file.

Solved by closing Git Bash opened in another window - another revert trial in IntelliJ worked.

answered May 26 '15 at 07:16

Eel Lee

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score 0 · Answer 21 · answered Jul 26 '18 at 14:53

I encountered this error and I think the issue was that I had 'run as admin' when I started Eclipse and created the files, therefore they were owned by Admin (noticed by running 'ls -la' on the folder). When I later tried to stash the files, it didn't let me ('unable to unlink files' and all that). Doing a chmod on the files was the fix for me.

score 0 · Answer 22 · answered Aug 28 '18 at 18:36

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git gc worked for me (in a new tab). Was getting this with every rebase. Thanks http://www.saintsatplay.com/blog/2016/02/dealing-with-git-unlink-file-errors#.W4WWNZMzZZJ

answered Aug 28 '18 at 18:36

madav

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score 0 · Answer 23 · edited Mar 26 '19 at 15:01

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All you need to do is provide permissions, run the command below from the root of your project:

    chmod ug+w <directory path>

edited Mar 26 '19 at 15:01

Pavel Smirnov

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answered Mar 26 '19 at 14:05

Hansa

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score 0 · Answer 24 · answered Apr 01 '19 at 12:22

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I had the same issue , I tried few alternatives as others suggested.

But finally giving correct permission to .git folder solve the issues.

sudo chown -R "${USER:-$(id -un)}" .git

answered Apr 01 '19 at 12:22

Raza Rafaideen

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score 0 · Answer 25 · answered Apr 21 '20 at 15:13

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In my case the permission problem solved by setting www-data as an owner:

chown -R www-data project_folder_name

answered Apr 21 '20 at 15:13

Avag Sargsyan

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score 0 · Answer 26 · answered Jan 16 '21 at 06:50

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I've encountered this error while running Git Bash on a windows box. In my particular case I just needed to open Git Bash as administrator.

answered Jan 16 '21 at 06:50

Craig

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score 0 · Answer 27 · answered Mar 15 '21 at 11:26

For me, at the top of the message there was:

Auto packing the repository in background for optimum performance.
See "git help gc" for manual housekeeping.
error: The last gc run reported the following. Please correct the root cause
and remove .git/gc.log.
Automatic cleanup will not be performed until the file is removed.

So I removed the file with rm .git/gc.log, and then I got:

Auto packing the repository in background for optimum performance.
See "git help gc" for manual housekeeping.
error: The last gc run reported the following. Please correct the root cause
and remove .git/gc.log.
Automatic cleanup will not be performed until the file is removed.

warning: There are too many unreachable loose objects; run 'git prune' to remove them.

After running git prune, everything was back to normal.

score 0 · Answer 28 · answered Apr 07 '21 at 08:43

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I solved this problem, just by delete all temp data > Run>%temp% >Hit enter and delete all temp files and restarting the computer. For me it is working now.

answered Apr 07 '21 at 08:43

Muhammad Bilal

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score 0 · Answer 29 · answered May 05 '22 at 12:25

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I had the same problem on Windows. Fixed it by using the following command instead:

git show feature-branch:./filePath > ./filePath

answered May 05 '22 at 12:25

Bonnev

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Git Checkout warning: unable to unlink files, permission denied

29 Answers29

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