Why does Git say my master branch is already up to date even though it is not

Question

Basic Problem  I just deleted ALL the code from a file in my project and committed the change to my local git  on purpose   I did   git pull upstream master   to fetch and merge from upstream  so in theory that deleted code should be back    Git tells me everything is up to date   Everything is definitely NOT up to date -- all that deleted code is still deleted   Other Relevant Info  I only have one branch called  master    I recently set up  master  to track upstream like so      Branch master set up to track remote branch master from upstream    The command git branch -vv yields     master 7cfcb29  upstream master  ahead 9  deletion test   Why why why is this happening   I m on the verge of just e-mailing my project manager any changes I make to our code   Update  I thought it was obvious  but anyways this is my goal   Get the most recent of the code on my system   Excuse my anger here  but why does such a simple task as that have to be so hard

User · Answer

The top answer is much better in terms of breadth and depth of information given, but it seems like if you wanted your problem fixed almost immediately, and don't mind trodding on some of the basic principles of version control, you could ...

Switch to master
```
$ git checkout upstream master
```
Delete your unwanted branch. (Note: it must be have the -D, instead of the normal -d flag because your branch is many commits ahead of the master.)
```
$ git branch -d <branch_name>
```
Create a new branch
```
$ git checkout -b <new_branch_name>
```

User · Answer

As the other posters say  pull merges changes from upstream into your repository   If you want to replace what is in your repository with what is in upstream  you have several options   Off the cuff  I d go with  git checkout HEAD 1    Get off your repo s master   doesn t matter where you go  so just go back one commit git branch -d master    Delete your repo s master branch git checkout -t upstream master    Check out upstream s master into a local tracking branch of the same name

User · Answer

I had the same problem as you   I did git status git fetch git pull  but my branch was still behind to origin  I had folders and files pushed to remote and I saw the files on the web  but on my local they were missing   Finally  these commands updated all the files and folders on my local   git fetch --all git reset --hard origin master    or if you want a branch  git checkout your branch name here git reset --hard origin your branch name here

User · Answer

While none of these answers worked for me  I was able to fix the issue using the following command   git fetch origin  This did a trick for me

User · Answer

I think your basic issue here is that you re misinterpreting and or misunderstanding what git does and why it does it   When you clone some other repository  git makes a copy of whatever is  over there    It also takes  their  branch labels  such as master  and makes a copy of that label whose  full name  in your git tree is  normally  remotes origin master  but in your case  remotes upstream master    Most of the time you get to omit the remotes  part too  so you can refer to that original copy as upstream master   If you now make and commit some change s  to some file s   you re the only one with those changes   Meanwhile other people may use the original repository  from which you made your clone  to make other clones and change those clones   They are the only ones with their changes  of course   Eventually though  someone may have changes they send back to the original owner  via  push  or patches or whatever    The git pull command is mostly just shorthand for git fetch followed by git merge   This is important because it means you need to understand what those two operations actually do   The git fetch command says to go back to wherever you cloned from  or have otherwise set up as a place to fetch from  and find  new stuff someone else added or changed or removed    Those changes are copied over and applied to your copy of what you got from them earlier   They are not applied to your own work  only to theirs   The git merge command is more complicated and is where you are going awry   What it does  oversimplified a bit  is compare  what you changed in your copy  to  changes you fetched from someone-else and thus got added to your-copy-of-the-someone-else s-work    If your changes and their changes don t seem to conflict  the merge operation mushes them together and gives you a  merge commit  that ties your development and their development together  though there is a very common  easy  case in which you have no changes and you get a  fast forward     The situation you re encountering now is one in which you have made changes and committed them   nine times  in fact  hence the  ahead 9    and they have made no changes   So  fetch dutifully fetches nothing  and then merge takes their lack-of-changes and also does nothing   What you want is to look at  or maybe even  reset  to   their  version of the code   If you merely want to look at it  you can simply check out that version   git checkout upstream master   That tells git that you want to move the current directory to the branch whose full name is actually remotes upstream master   You ll see their code as of the last time you ran git fetch and got their latest code   If you want to abandon all your own changes  what you need to do is change git s idea of which revision your label  master  should name   Currently it names your most recent commit   If you get back onto that branch   git checkout master   then the git reset command will allow you to  move the label   as it were   The only remaining problem  assuming you re really ready to abandon everything you ve don  is finding where the label should point   git log will let you find the numeric names   those things like 7cfcb29   which are permanent  never changing  names  and there are a ridiculous number of other ways to name them  but in this case you just want the name upstream master   To move the label  wiping out your own changes  any that you have committed are actually recoverable for quite a while but it s a lot harder after this so be very sure    git reset --hard upstream master   The --hard tells git to wipe out what you have been doing  move the current branch label  and then check out the given commit   It s not super-common to really want to git reset --hard and wipe out a bunch of work   A safer method  making it a lot easier to recover that work if you decide some of it was worthwhile after all  is to rename your existing branch   git branch -m master bunchofhacks   and then make a new local branch named master that  tracks   I don t really like this term as I think it confuses people but that s the git term  -    the origin  or upstream  master   git branch -t master upstream master   which you can then get yourself on with   git checkout master   What the last three commands do  there s shortcuts to make it just two commands  is to change the name pasted on the existing label  then make a new label  then switch to it   before doing anything   C0 -     remotes upstream master              - C1 --- C2 --- C3 --- C4 --- C5 --- C6 --- C7 --- C8 --- C9     master    after git branch -m   C0 -     remotes upstream master              - C1 --- C2 --- C3 --- C4 --- C5 --- C6 --- C7 --- C8 --- C9     bunchofhacks    after git branch -t master upstream master   C0 -     remotes upstream master    master              - C1 --- C2 --- C3 --- C4 --- C5 --- C6 --- C7 --- C8 --- C9     bunchofhacks    Here C0 is the latest commit  a complete source tree  that you got when you first did your git clone   C1 through C9 are your commits   Note that if you were to git checkout bunchofhacks and then git reset --hard HEAD    this would change the last picture to   C0 -     remotes upstream master    master              - C1 --- C2 --- C3 --- C4 --- C5 --- C6 --- C7 -     bunchofhacks                                                                                                                  - C8 --- C9   The reason is that HEAD   names the revision two up from the head of the current branch  which just before the reset would be bunchofhacks   and reset --hard then moves the label   Commits C8 and C9 are now mostly invisible  you can use things like the reflog and git fsck to find them but it s no longer trivial    Your labels are yours to move however you like   The fetch command takes care of the ones that start with remotes    It s conventional to match  yours  with  theirs   so if they have a remotes origin mauve you d name yours mauve too   but you can type in  theirs  whenever you want to name see commits you got  from them     Remember that  one commit  is an entire source tree   You can pick out one specific file from one commit  with git show for instance  if and when you want that

User · Answer

Just a friendly reminder if you have files locally that aren t in github and yet your git status says  Your branch is up to date with  origin master   nothing to commit  working tree clean  It can happen if the files are in  gitignore Try running cat  gitignore   and seeing if these files show up there  That would explain why git doesn t want to move them to the remote

User · Answer

Any changes you commit  like deleting all your project files  will still be in place after a pull  All a pull does is merge the latest changes from somewhere else into your own branch  and if your branch has deleted everything  then at best you ll get merge conflicts when upstream changes affect files you ve deleted  So  in short  yes everything is up to date   If you describe what outcome you d like to have instead of  all files deleted   maybe someone can suggest an appropriate course of action   Update      GET THE MOST RECENT OF THE CODE ON MY SYSTEM   What you don t seem to understand is that you already have the most recent code  which is yours  If what you really want is to see the most recent of someone else s work that s on the master branch  just do   git fetch upstream git checkout upstream master   Note that this won t leave you in a position to immediately  re start your own work  If you need to know how to undo something you ve done or otherwise revert changes you or someone else have made  then please provide details  Also  consider reading up on what version control is for  since you seem to misunderstand its basic purpose

[git] Why does Git say my master branch is "already up to date" even though it is not?

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