6 posts tagged with "git errors"

How to Fix "You have divergent branches" Error​

The "You have divergent branches" error is a Git warning, not a hard error that stops your operation. It appears when your local branch and the corresponding remote branch have both moved forward, creating a divergent history. Git is telling you that a simple fast-forward merge is not possible and you need to choose a strategy to reconcile the differences before your next git pull.

The error message itself provides the three main solutions: merge, rebase, or fast-forward only.

The error error: 'main/' does not have a commit checked out occurs when Git tries to add files to a submodule that is in a detached HEAD state or has no checked-out commit. This happens because the main repository expects the submodule to point to a specific commit, but it's in an invalid state.

To fix this, you need to navigate into the submodule's directory and check out a commit, usually by switching to the main branch or a specific branch.

The "refusing to merge unrelated histories" error occurs when you try to merge two branches that do not share a common history. This typically happens when you initialize a new Git repository and then try to pull a remote repository's contents into it, as Git sees them as two completely separate projects.

To solve this, you can use the --allow-unrelated-histories flag. This flag forces Git to merge the two independent histories, creating a merge commit that joins them together.

How to Solve "Not Possible to Fast-Forward" with git pull​

The git pull "Not possible to fast-forward" error happens when your local branch and the remote branch have diverged. This means there are new commits on the remote branch that you don't have, and you also have local commits that are not on the remote branch. Git cannot simply move your branch pointer forward (fast-forward) because doing so would lose your local changes.

To fix this, you must explicitly tell Git how to merge the divergent histories. There are two primary solutions: using git pull with rebase or performing a standard git pull followed by a manual merge.

To save your username and password in Git, you can configure a credential helper. A credential helper is a Git component that securely stores your authentication information in memory or on disk, so you don't have to enter it every time you interact with a remote repository.

The fatal: unable to access error with the message "Write access to repository not granted" typically means you don't have the necessary permissions to push changes to the GitHub repository. It's a clear signal from the server that your authentication credentials, while valid, don't grant you the required write access.

Here's how to diagnose and solve this issue: