Cannot push to GitHub - keeps saying need merge

Question

I m new to GitHub  Today I met some issue when I was trying to push my code to GitHub   Pushing to git github com 519ebayproject 519ebayproject git To git github com 519ebayproject 519ebayproject git     rejected         master - gt  master  non-fast-forward  error  failed to push some refs to  git github com 519ebayproject 519ebayproject git  hint  Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch is behind hint  its remote counterpart  Merge the remote changes  e g   git pull   hint  before pushing again  hint  See the  Note about fast-forwards  in  git push --help  for details    I have not pushed anything in the repository yet  so why do I need to pull something

User · Answer

I was getting the above mentioned error message when I tried to push my current branch foobar:

git checkout foobar
git push origin foo

It turns out I had two local branches tracking the same remote branch:

foo -> origin/foo (some old branch)
foobar -> origin/foo (my current working branch)

It worked for me to push my current branch by using:

git push origin foobar:foo

... and to cleanup with git branch -d

User · Answer

Another solution is to advance the head of the remote by making another commit if you can  After you pull this advanced head into the local subtree then you will be able to push from it again

User · Answer

git push -f origin branchname  Use the above command only if you are sure that you don t need remote branch code otherwise do merge first and then push the code

User · Answer

If you are certain that no one made changes to your git repository and that you are working on the latest version  git pull doesn t make sense as a solution in your heart     Then this is probably what happened  you used git commit --amend     It lets you combine staged changes with the previous commit instead of committing it as an entirely new snapshot  It can also be used to simply edit the previous commit message without changing its snapshot    ATLASSIAN tutorial  rewriting history  However  it is not recommended to perform git commit --amend if you have already pushed the commit to GitHub  this is because  amending doesn   t just alter the most recent commit   it replaces it entirely  To Git  it will look like a brand new commit  which means to other developer on your GitHub  history looks like A- B- C but to you it looks like A- B- D  if GitHub let you push  everyone else will have to manually fix their history  This is the reason why you get the error message    rejected         master - gt  master  non-fast-forward   if you know that no one has pulled your latest change  you can do git push --force  this will alter the git history in your public repo  Otherwise   you can perform git pull  but I believe this will have the same result as you didn t go through git commit --amend it will create a new commit  ie  git history after git pull  A- B- C- D   for more detail  How to change your latest commit

User · Answer

I experienced the very same problem and it turned out I was on a different  local  branch than I thought I was AND the correct local branch was behind in commits from remote   My solution  checkout the correct branch  cherry-pick the commit from the other local branch  git pull and git push

User · Answer

The problem with push command is that you your local and remote repository doesn t match  IF you initialize readme by default when creating new repository from git hub  then  master branch is automatically created  However  when you try to push that has no any branch  you cannot push    So  the best practice is to create repo without default readme initialization

User · Answer

Have you updated your code before pushing   Use git pull origin master before you push anything   I assume that you are using origin as a name for your remote   You need to pull before push  to make your local repository up-to-date before you push something  just in case someone else has already updated code on github com   This helps in resolving conflicts locally

User · Answer

As the message tells you      Merge the remote changes  e g   git pull     Use git pull to pull the latest changes from the remote repository to your local repository  In this case  pulling changes will require a merge because you have made changes to your local repository    I ll provide an example and a picture to explain  Let s assume your last pull from origin branch was at Commit B  You have completed and committed some work  Commit C   At the same time  someone else has completed their work and pushed it to origin branch  Commit D   There will need to be a merge between these two branches    local branch                          --- Commit C                                                                                                                 origin branch  Commit A ------ Commit B ---- Commit D    Because you are the one that wants to push  Git forces you to perform the merge  To do so  you must first pull the changes from origin branch    local branch                          --- Commit C -- Commit E                                                                                                                                                                                                       origin branch  Commit A ------ Commit B ---- Commit D     After completing the merge  you will now be allowed to fast-forward origin branch to Commit E by pushing your changes            Git requires that you handle merges yourself  because a merge may lead to conflicts

User · Answer

If by any chance git pull prints Already up-to-date then you might want to check the global git push default param  In    gitconfig   Set it to simple if it was in matching  The below answer explains why   Git - What is the difference between push default  quot matching quot  and  quot simple quot   Also  it is worth checking if your local branch is out of date using git remote show origin and do a pull if needed

User · Answer

In my case  I had  mybranch  checked out  and had done git pull  so I couldn t figure out why the push wasn t working  Eventually  I realized that I was pushing the wrong branch  I was typing git push origin master instead of git push origin mybranch   So if you ve already done git pull and still getting this message  make sure you re pushing the correct branch

User · Answer

This normally happens when you git commit and try to git push changes before git pulling on that branch x where someone else has already made changes   The normal flow would be as below    STEP 1  git stash your local uncommitted changes on that branch   STEP 2  git pull origin branch name -v to pull and merge to locally committed changes on that branch  give this merge some message  and fix conflicts if any    STEP 3  git stash pop the stashed changes  Then you can make commits on popped files if you want or push already committed changes  STEP4  first and make new commit to files later     STEP 4  git push origin branch name -v the merged changes   Replace branch name with master  for master branch

User · Answer

I mentioned this in my tutorial  How To Use GitHub  A tutorial for beginners   When you create a new repository on GitHub  GitHub may ask you to create a readme file  If you create a readme file directly on GitHub  then you will need to first make a    pull    request before the    push    request will be successful  These commands will    pull    the remote repository  merge it with your current files  and then    push    all the files back to GitHub   git pull https   github com thomas07vt MyFirstRepo git master  git push https   github com thomas07vt MyFirstRepo git master

User · Answer

This problem is usually caused by creating a readme md file  which is counted as a commit  is not synchronized locally on the system  and is lacking behind the head  hence  it shows a git pull request  You can try avoiding the readme file and then try to commit  It worked in my case

User · Answer

I had the same problem   what I did was I first pushed it by force by using this   git push --force   I did this after I commited the files and was getting an error as you got It did commit all the files and it pushed them  Then the next time I was pushing to the github  I did what it asked me to and it was alright then  Hope this works for you too

User · Answer

I had a similar issue and it turned out that my workflow for keeping my branch up to date was at fault  I was doing the following   In my local  master   git fetch upstream git merge upstream master --ff-only   then back in my local branch  git rebase master   This worked well for a previous git flow but not with github  The git rebase was the problem here causing issues with syncing  and I ll admit that s something I ve had to accept without fully understanding  and unfortunately put me in a position where git push -f became probably the easiest option  Not good   My new flow is to update the branch directly using git merge as follows   In my local branch  git fetch upstream git merge upstream master   No fast forward  as I will have made changes of course in the local branch   As you can probably tell  I m no git expert but I m reliably informed that this workflow will probably avoid the specific problems that I had

User · Answer

I have resolve this issue at my GIT repository  No need to rebase or force commit in this case  Use below steps to resolve this -  local barnch gt  git branch --set-upstream to origin  lt local branch name gt    local barnch gt git pull origin  lt local branch name gt   local barnch gt  git branch --set-upstream to origin master  local barnch gt git push origin  lt local branch name gt    hope it will help

User · Answer

I was getting a similar error while pushing the latest changes to a bare Git repository which I use for gitweb  In my case I didn t make any changes in the bare repository  so I simply deleted my bare repository and cloned again   git clone --bare  lt source repo path gt   lt target bare repo path gt

User · Answer

Another option  locally rename your branch to something new   You will then be able to push it to the remote repository  for example if that is your way of keeping a copy  backup  and making sure nothing gets lost    You can fetch the remote branch to have a local copy and examine the differences between  i  what the remote had  with the old branch name  and  ii  what you have  with the new branch name   and decide what to do  Since you weren t aware of the remote s differences in the first place  hence the problem   simply merging or forcing changes somewhere is far too brutal   Look at the differences  pick which branch you want to work on  cherry pick changes you want from the other branch  or revert changes you don t want on the branch you ve got etc   Then you should be in a position to decide whether you want to force your clean version onto the remote  or add new changes  or whatever

User · Answer

You won t be able to push changes to remote branch unless you unstage your staged files and then save local changes and apply the pull from remote and then you can push your changes to remote  The steps are as follows-- gt  git reset --soft HEAD 1   to get the staged files  git status  check the files which are staged  git restore --staged  lt files   gt   to restore the staged  git stash  to save the current changes  git pull  get changes from remote  git stash apply  to apply the local changes in order to add and commit  git add  lt files    gt   add the local files for commit  git commit -m    commit msg    git push

User · Answer

Sometimes we forgot the pulling and did lots of works in the local environment   If someone want to push without pull   git push --force   is working  This is not recommended when working with other people  but when your work is a simple thing or a personal toy project  it will be a quick solution

User · Answer

This can cause the remote repository to lose commits  use it with care    If you do not wish to merge the remote branch into your local branch  see differences with git diff   and want to do a force push  use the push command with -f  git push -f origin  lt branch gt    where origin is the name of your remote repo      Usually  the command refuses to update a remote ref that is not an ancestor of the local ref used to overwrite it  This flag disables the check  This can cause the remote repository to lose commits  use it with care

User · Answer

Is your branch name the same as the remote branch name  If no  you should checkout a new branch with the same name as the remote branch and try push it again  Assume the remote branch you want to push is  testing  and your local branch is named as  test   If you re not in test branch  first switch to it  git checkout test  Then open a new branch and name it testing  git checkout -b testing  Now  it s time to push it  git push  remote repo  testing

User · Answer

Another cause of this problem  apparently not so common      My server was behind  12 hours when I did a push  I configured NTP on the server SYNC my clock    I executed a new git push which led the error discussed in this post

User · Answer

use git pull https   github com username repository It s because the Github and remote repositories aren t in sync  If you pull the repo and then Push everything will be in sync and error will go away

User · Answer

Your branch should include the latest merged changes as soon as you notice them  but you haven t pulled the latest changes  git fetch   might be all that is needed  If that doesn t work  then you might need to  git pull  lt sharedRepo gt   lt branch gt  --rebase  If you don t have any merge conflicts  you should be able to push your changes successfully  git push  lt forkedRepo gt   lt branch gt   If you encounter merge conflicts  you cannot solve them remotely in GitHub   You have to solve them locally and then push the resolutions with a force label because a merge conflict resolution changes history  git push  lt forkedRepo gt   lt branch gt  -f

User · Answer

git pull origin branch name --rebase   This worked for me -- the command git pull origin branch name --rebase will pull changes from remote branch name  at first  then rebase current branch  on the top of it

User · Answer

git pull prints Already up-to-date solution  you might be created a repository project in remote server  and added some file there  Then again created a Folder in your local and initialised git git init - this is the mistake  you should not create git init in local  instead clone the project to your local using git clone then pull

User · Answer

In addition to the answers above  the following worked for me   -  Scenario -   I pushed my branch to origin successfully  I made few more changes  When I tried to push again   after doing add  commit of course   I got the above mentioned error    Solution -   1  git checkout   my branch    2  git add  commit your changes   3  git pull origin   my branch    not origin  master  or develop   4  git push origin   my branch

User · Answer

First and simple solution   Try this command git push -f origin master  This command will forcefully overwrite remote repository  GitHub   Recommended Solution 1    Run these commands   git pull --allow-unrelated-histories    this might give you error but nothing to worry  next cmd will fix it git add   git commit -m  quot commit message quot  git push  If this doesn t work then follow along  Solution 2  Not Recommend     Will Delete all your commit history   Delete  git directory from the folder   Then execute these commands    git init   git add     git commit -m  quot First Commit quot    git remote add origin  url    git push -u origin master    OR git push -f origin master   Only use git push -f origin master if -u dont work for you  This will solve almost any kind of errors occurring while pushing your files

User · Answer

Just had the same issue but in my case I had typed the wrong branch on the remote   So  it seems that is another source of this issue    double check you re pushing to the correct branch

User · Answer

Some of you may be getting this error because Git doesn t know which branch you re trying to push   If your error message also includes  error  failed to push some refs to  git github com jkubicek my proj git  hint  Updates were rejected because a pushed branch tip is behind its remote hint  counterpart  If you did not intend to push that branch  you may want to hint  specify branches to push or set the  push default  configuration hint  variable to  current  or  upstream  to push only the current branch    then you may want to follow the handy tips from Jim Kubicek  Configure Git to Only Push Current Branch  to set the default branch to current   git config --global push default current

[git] Cannot push to GitHub - keeps saying need merge

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