Git Push error refusing to update checked out branch

Question

I have solved some merge conflicts  committed then tried to Push my changes and received the following error   c  Program Files  x86  Git bin git exe push --recurse-submodules check  origin  master master Done remote  error  refusing to update checked out branch  refs heads master remote  error  By default  updating the current branch in a non-bare repository remote  error  is denied  because it will make the index and work tree inconsistent remote  error  with what you pushed  and will require  git reset --hard  to match remote  error  the work tree to HEAD  remote  error   remote  error  You can set  receive denyCurrentBranch  configuration variable to remote  error   ignore  or  warn  in the remote repository to allow pushing into remote  error  its current branch  however  this is not recommended unless you remote  error  arranged to update its work tree to match what you pushed in some remote  error  other way  remote  error   remote  error  To squelch this message and still keep the default behaviour  set remote  error   receive denyCurrentBranch  configuration variable to  refuse   To C  Development GIT Repo Project     remote rejected  master - gt  master  branch is currently checked out  error  failed to push some refs to  C  Development GIT Repo Project    Does anyone know what could be causing this error

User · Answer

For me  the following did the trick  git config --global receive denyCurrentBranch updateInstead  I set up drive F   almost in its entirety  to sync between my Windows 10 desktop and my Windows 10 laptop  using Git  I ended up running the above command on both machines  First I shared the desktop s F drive on the network  Then I was able to clone it on my laptop by running  F  git clone  file      DESKTOP-PC f   Unfortunately  all the files ended up under  quot F  f quot  on my laptop  not under F   directly  But I was able to cut and paste them manually  Git still worked from the new location afterwards  Then I tried making some changes to files on the laptop  committing them  and pushing them back to the desktop  That didn t work until I ran the git config command mentioned above  Note that I ran all these commands from within Windows PowerShell  on both machines  UPDATE  I still had issues pushing changes  in some cases  I finally just started pulling changes instead  by running the following on the computer I want to pull the latest commit s  to  git pull --all --prune

User · Answer

Maybe your remote repo is in the branch which you want to push  You can try to checkout another branch in your remote machine  I did this  than these error disappeared  and I pushed success to my remote repo  Notice that I use ssh to connect my own server instead of github com

User · Answer

Summary  You cannot push to the one checked out branch of a repository because it would mess with the user of that repository in a way that will most probably end with loss of data and history  But you can push to any other branch of the same repository   As bare repositories never have any branch checked out  you can always push to any branch of a bare repository   Autopsy of the problem  When a branch is checked out  committing will add a new commit with the current branch s head as its parent and move the branch s head to be that new commit   So  A   B        HEAD branch1    becomes  A   B   C                HEAD branch1    But if someone could push to that branch inbetween  the user would get itself in what git calls detached head mode   A   B   X            HEAD   branch1    Now the user is not in branch1 anymore  without having explicitly asked to check out another branch  Worse  the user is now outside any branch  and any new commit will just be dangling          HEAD                    C         A   B   X                   branch1    Hypothetically  if at this point  the user checks out another branch  then this dangling commit becomes fair game for Git s garbage collector

User · Answer

As there s already an existing repository  running  git config --bool core bare true   on the remote repository should suffice  From the core bare documentation  If true  bare   true   the repository is assumed to be bare with no working directory associated  If this is the case a number of commands that require a working directory will be disabled  such as git-add or git-merge  but you will be able to push to it    This setting is automatically guessed by git-clone or git-init when the repository is created  By default a repository that ends in    git  is assumed to be not bare  bare   false   while all other repositories are assumed to be bare  bare   true

User · Answer

I has this error because the git repo was  accidentally  initialised twice on the same location   first as a non-bare repo and shortly after as a bare repo   Because the  git folder remains  git assumes the repository is non-bare   Removing the  git folder and working directory data solved the issue

User · Answer

TLDR   Pull  amp  push again  git pull  amp  amp  amp  git push  Still a problem  Push into different branch  git push origin master foo and merge it on remote repo  Alternatively force the push by adding -f  denyCurrentBranch needs to be ignored       Basically the error means that your repository is not up-to-date with the remote code  its index and work tree is inconsistent with what you pushed    Normally you should pull first to get the recent changes and push it again   If won t help  try pushing into different branch  e g    git push origin master foo   then merge this branch on the remote repository back with master   If you changed some past commits intentionally via git rebase and you want to override repo with your changes  you probably want to force the push by adding -f --force parameter  not recommended if you didn t do rebase   If still won t work  you need to set receive denyCurrentBranch to ignore on remote as suggested by a git message via   git config receive denyCurrentBranch ignore

User · Answer

I got this error when I was playing around while reading progit   I made a local repository  then fetched it in another repo on the same file system  made an edit and tried to push   After reading NowhereMan s answer  a quick fix was to go to the  remote  directory and temporarily checkout another commit  push from the directory I made changes in  then go back and put the head back on master

User · Answer

I solved this problem by first verifying the that remote did not have anything checked out  it really was not supposed to   and then made it bare with     git config --bool core bare true   After that git push worked fine

User · Answer

It s works for me  git config --global receive denyCurrentBranch updateInstead   git push origin master

User · Answer

Reason You are pushing to a Non-Bare Repository  There are two types of repositories  bare and non-bare  Bare repositories do not have a working copy and you can push to them  Those are the types of repositories you get in Github  If you want to create a bare repository  you can use  git init --bare   So  in short  you can t push to a non-bare repository  Edit  Well  you can t push to the currently checked out branch of a repository  With a bare repository  you can push to any branch since none are checked out  Although possible  pushing to non-bare repositories is not common   What you can do  is to fetch and merge from the other repository  This is how the pull request that you can see in Github works  You ask them to pull from you  and you don t force-push into them     Update  Thanks to VonC for pointing this out  in the latest git versions  currently 2 3 0   pushing to the checked out branch of a non-bare repository is possible  Nevertheless  you still cannot push to a dirty working tree  which is not a safe operation anyway

User · Answer

cd into the repo directory that you re pushing into on the remote machine and enter    git config core bare true

[git] Git Push error: refusing to update checked out branch

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