How do I fix a Git detached head

Question

I was doing some work in my repository and noticed a file had local changes  I didn t want them anymore so I deleted the file  thinking I can just checkout a fresh copy  I wanted to do the Git equivalent of  svn up     Using git pull didn t seem to work  Some random searching led me to a site where someone recommended doing  git checkout HEAD  src     src is the directory containing the deleted file    Now I find out I have a detached head  I have no idea what that is  How can I undo

User · Answer

This approach will potentially discard part of the commit history  but it is easier in case the merge of the old master branch and the current status is tricky  or you simply do not mind losing part of the commit history  To simply keep things as currently are  without merging  turning the current detached HEAD into the master branch   Manually back up the repository  in case things go unexpectedly wrong  Commit the last changes you would like to keep  Create a temporary branch  let s name it detached-head  that will contain the files in their current status   git checkout -b detached-head    a  Delete the master branch if you do not need to keep it  git branch -D master    b  OR rename if you want to keep it  git branch -M master old-master   Rename the temporary branch as the new master branch  git branch -M detached-head master  Credit  adapted from this Medium article by Gary Lai

User · Answer

If you made changes and then realized that you are on a detached head  you can do  stash - gt  checkout master - gt  stash pop  git stash git checkout master     Fix the detached head state git stash pop           Or for extra safety use  stash apply  then later                            after fixing everything do  stash drop   You will have your uncommited changes and normal  quot attached quot  HEAD  like nothing happened

User · Answer

Detached head means you are no longer on a branch  you have checked out a single commit in the history  in this case the commit previous to HEAD  i e  HEAD    If you want to delete your changes associated with the detached HEAD You only need to checkout the branch you were on  e g  git checkout master  Next time you have changed a file and want to restore it to the state it is in the index  don t delete the file first  just do git checkout -- path to foo  This will restore the file foo to the state it is in the index  If you want to keep your changes associated with the detached HEAD  Run git branch tmp - this will save your changes in a new branch called tmp  Run git checkout master If you would like to incorporate the changes you made into master  run git merge tmp from the master branch  You should be on the master branch after running git checkout master

User · Answer

Since  detached head state  has you on a temp branch  just use git checkout - which puts you on the last branch you were on

User · Answer

If you have changed files you don t want to lose  you can push them  I have committed them in the detached mode and after that you can move to a temporary branch to integrate later in master   git commit -m         git branch my-temporary-work git checkout master git merge my-temporary-work   Extracted from    What to do with commit made in a detached head

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The detached HEAD means that you are currently not on any branch  If you want to KEEP your current changes and simply create a new branch  this is what you do   git commit -m  your commit message  git checkout -b new branch   Afterwards  you potentially want to merge this new branch with other branches  Always helpful is the git  a dog  command   git log --all --decorate --oneline --graph

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To further clarify  Philippe Gerber s answer  here it is     Before cherry-pick  a git checkout master is necessary in this case  Furthermore  it is only needed with a commit in detached head

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When you re in a detached head situation and created new files  first make sure that these new files are added to the index  for example with   git add     But if you ve only changed or deleted existing files  you can add  -a  and commit with a message  -m  at the the same time via   git commit -a -m  my adjustment message    Then you can simply create a new branch with your current state with   git checkout -b new branch name   You ll have a new branch and all your adjustments will be there in that new branch  You can then continue to push to the remote and or checkout pull merge as you please

User · Answer

Detached head means you have not checked out your branch properly or you have just checked out a single commit   If you encounter such an issue then first stash your local changes so that you won t lose your changes   After that    checkout your desired branch using the command   Let s say you want branch MyOriginalBranch   git checkout -b someName origin MyOriginalBranch

User · Answer

This works for me  It will assign a new branch for detached head    git checkout new branch name detached head garbage name

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I wanted to keep my changes so  I just fix this doing     git add   git commit -m  Title  -m  Description   so i have a commit now example  123abc  git checkout YOURCURRENTBRANCH git merge 123abc git push TOYOURCURRENTBRANCH   that work for me

User · Answer

you probably did git reset --hard origin your-branch    Try to just git checkout your-branch

User · Answer

git pull origin master   worked for me  It was just about giving remote and branch name explicitly

User · Answer

Realizing I had a detached head without knowing how I managed to get it  like three commits away   I also found out that trying to merge  rebase or cherry-pick triggered hundreds of merge-conflicts  so I took a different approach    Assuming everything is committed  working tree is  quot clean quot     Save my commit messages  git log  gt   tmp log  Save my working tree  mkdir  tmp backup  amp  amp  cp -a all my files and directories  tmp backup  Revert to master  git checkout master  Remove all the working files and directories  rm      Use the backup  cp -a  tmp backup      git add and git commit using messages from saved  tmp log  maybe repeating it with different sub-sets of files      The disadvantage is that you loose your commit history if one file was changed multiple times since master  but in the end I had a clean master

User · Answer

HEAD is a pointer  and it points     directly or indirectly     to a particular commit  Attached   HEAD means that it is attached to some branch  i e  it points to a branch   Detached HEAD means that it is not attached to any branch  i e  it points directly to some commit   In other words   If it points to a commit directly  the HEAD is detached  If it points to a commit indirectly   i e  it points to a branch  which in turn points to a commit   the HEAD is attached    To better understand situations with attached   detached HEAD  let s show the steps leading to the quadruplet of pictures above  We begin with the same state of the repository  pictures in all quadrants are the same     Now we want to perform git checkout     with different targets in the individual pictures  commands on top of them are dimmed to emphasize that we are only going to apply those commands     This is the situation after performing those commands   As you can see  the HEAD points to the target of the git checkout command     to a branch  first 3 images of the quadruplet   or  directly  to a commit  the last image of the quadruplet   The content of the working directory is changed  too  to be in accordance with the appropriate commit  snapshot   i e  with the commit pointed  directly or indirectly  by the HEAD   So now we are in the same situation as in the start of this answer

User · Answer

A solution without creating a temporary branch   How to exit     fix     detached HEAD state when you already changed something in this mode and  optionally  want to save your changes    Commit changes you want to keep  If you want to take over any of the changes you made in detached HEAD state  commit them  Like   git commit -a -m  your commit message   Discard changes you do not want to keep  The hard reset will discard any uncommitted changes that you made in detached HEAD state   git reset --hard    Without this  step 3 would fail  complaining about modified uncommitted files in the detached HEAD   Check out your branch  Exit detached HEAD state by checking out the branch you worked on before  for example   git checkout master  Take over your commits  You can now take over the commits you made in detached HEAD state by cherry-picking  as shown in my answer to another question   git reflog git cherry-pick  lt hash1 gt   lt hash2 gt   lt hash3 gt

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Addendum  If the branch to which you wish to return was the last checkout that you had made  you can simply use checkout   -1   This will take you back to your previous checkout    Further  you can alias this command with  for example  git global --config alias prev so that you just need to type git prev to toggle back to the previous checkout

User · Answer

When you check out a specific commit in git  you end up in a detached head state   that is  your working copy no longer reflects the state of a named reference  like  master     This is useful for examining the past state of the repository  but not what you want if you re actually trying to revert changes   If you have made changes to a particular file and you simply want to discard them  you can use the checkout command like this   git checkout myfile   This will discard any uncommitted changes and revert the file to whatever state it has in the head of your current branch   If you want to discard changes that you have already committed  you may want to use the reset command   For example  this will reset the repository to the state of the previous commit  discarding any subsequent changes   git reset --hard HEAD    However  if you are sharing the repository with other people  a git reset can be disruptive  because it erases a portion of the repository history    If you have already shared changes with other people  you generally want to look at git revert instead  which generates an  anticommit  -- that is  it creates a new commit that  undoes  the changes in question   The Git Book has more details

User · Answer

Detached head means    You are no longer on a branch  You have checked out a single commit in the history   If you have no changes  you can switch to master by applying the following command    git checkout master   If you have changes that you want to keep   In case of a detached HEAD  commits work like normal  except no named branch gets updated   To get master branch updated with your committed changes  make a temporary branch where you are  this way the temporary branch will have all the committed changes you have made in the detached HEAD   then switch to the master branch and merge the temporary branch with the master   git branch  temp git checkout master git merge temp

User · Answer

Being in  detached head  means that HEAD refers to a specific unnamed commit  as opposite to a named branch   cf  https   git-scm com docs git-checkout section Detached head   To fix the problem  you only need to select the branch that was selected before by   git checkout   -1

User · Answer

Here s what I just did after I realized I was on a detached head and had already made some changes   I committed the changes     git commit -m        detached HEAD 1fe56ad        I remembered the hash  1fe56ad  of the commit  Then I checked out the branch I should have been on     git checkout master Switched to branch  master    Finally I applied the changes of the commit to the branch     git cherry-pick 1fe56ad  master 0b05f1e        I think this is a bit easier than creating a temporary branch

User · Answer

Git told me how to do it   if you typed    git checkout  lt some-commit number gt    Save the status  git add   git commit -m  some message    Then    git push origin HEAD  lt name-of-remote-branch gt

User · Answer

Normally HEAD points to a branch  When it is not pointing to a branch instead when it points to a commit hash like 69e51 it means you have a detached HEAD  You need to point it two a branch to fix the issue  You can do two things to fix it    git checkout other branch    Not possible when you need the code in that commit hash create a new branch and point the commit hash to the newly created branch       HEAD must point to a branch  not a commit hash is the golden rule

[git] How do I fix a Git detached head?

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