[git] Another git process seems to be running in this repository

I'm trying to learn how to use Git and have created a small project with an HTML, CSS, and Javascript file. I made a branch from my basically empty project and then made some changes to my code. I tried staging the changes but I get the following error message:

Another git process seems to be running in this repository, e.g.
an editor opened by 'git commit'. Please make sure all processes
are terminated then try again. If it still fails, a git process
may have crashed in this repository earlier:
remove the file manually to continue.

Granted, I did run into problems trying to commit my empty project earlier and just quit git bash since I didn't know how to get out of where I somehow had gotten.

Is there any way for me to fix this or should I just start a new repository?

For me the problem was simpler, this was in source tree so I'm not sure how much it'll apply to regular solutions but I accidentally had my master branch selected trying to make a commit rather than my uncommitted changes.

This wouldn't normally be a problem but I had already preemptively entered a commit message so I could track what I was doing for that little sprint I was on.

Basically, I started a commit on the uncommitted branch and was accidentally trying to start another commit on my master branch.

It is similar to above methods but in my case I had several of those

.git/refs/heads/<branch_name>.lock

and was able to remove all at once by this way

find -name "*.lock" -exec xargs rm {} \;

If you are windows user there will be error 'rm' is not recognized as an internal or external command. That's because rm is a Linux command. So in windows, you can use below to remove the index.lock file inside .git folder

del -f .git/index.lock

Deleting my commit message worked for me.

rm .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG

It then said.

fatal: cannot lock ref 'HEAD': Unable to create '.git/refs/heads/[your-branch-name].lock': File exists.

Do notice that your branch name might be different than mine. You can delete this lock file by doing;

rm .git/refs/heads/[your-branch-name].lock

Hope this helps someone.

If you wind up here based on the question's title ("Another git process seems to be running in this repository"), note that the accepted answer will not be directly applicable to you if the message in this question's title is preceded by another message like the one below:

fatal: cannot lock ref 'HEAD': Unable to create '/<PATH>/<TO>/<REPO>/.git/refs/heads/<BRANCH>.lock': File exists.

In this case, you should delete that file(.lock) instead of .git/index.lock

If you are using CocoaPods and at some point botched an update or install (manually killed it or something), try

1) Removing the index.lock file (in .git/index.lock)

2) Remove your Podfile.lock file.

3) Do a new pod update

4) Try issuing the git command that was failing (in my case it was a git add .)

This happened to me and while sourcetree kept telling me the lock file exists, there was no such a file there for me to remove. So I just checked out another branch and then returned to the original branch and noticed this change fixed the issue.

Well, what helped me was simply making a copy of the repo folder with everything including the .git folder and working from the copy.

1. I made a copy of the repo folder
2. I navigated into the copy and deleted the .git/index.lock file & then i was able to initiate a PR
3. I deleted my original repo folder
4. I renamed the copy to the original

That worked for me.

If you are on PowerShell, use

rm -Force .git/index.lock

For me for any reason :

rm .git/index.lock

Didn't work, so I just went to the .git file and deleted it manually which worked fantastically.

Though there is an alternative above, but that didn't solve mine. In my case, I delete the "git" plugin in ./zshrc and reboot the computer then the issue is gone, I guess the zsh plugin had done something conflict the original git command.

i faced the same issue, issue was i tried to push my code with a xml file (used as a data set) which has size of 1.3gb , so i add these file into .gitignore and then problem solved

I have same faced issues when i tried to staged file in SourceTree.

To solve this go to the .git folder in the project directory and manually delete index.lock and you are done.

For me the solution was as simple as closing my IDE and then checking out. A teammate of mine had accepted my PR and merged the code via TFS. Removing the .lock files did not work.

Delete index.lock in here:

<path to your repo>/.git/index.lock

Also, if your repository has submodules, delete all index.lock in here as well:

<path to your repo>/.git/modules/<path to your submodule>/index.lock

Use the below command in the root directory of the application. This will delete the index.lock file and release the active lock.

rm .git/index.lock

In case can help somebody else... I tried with command line rm -f .git/index.lock and didn't work (terminal didn't show any error). I just went directly to folder .git and delete the index.lock file.

Note: .git folder is located in your root repository and is hidden. In mac: Cmd+Shift+. to see hidden files.

just for clarification, for those wondering why rm and del.

rm .git/index.lock - on a unix/linux system
del .git/index.lock - on a windows cmd prompt

you could add -f to force the operation that works.

Had the same problem using SourceTree. But there were no any index.lock file on my host at all. I've found packed-refs.lock file, and after deleting it, the problem was solved.

rm -f .git/index.lock didn't help, because I had a locked file that couldn't be deleted. So, index.lock also had been captured by some application.

In Windows I downloaded an alternative to Unlocker called Lock Hunter and deleted both files. Git captured them.

I tried deleting .git/indexbut didn't work, I end up uninstalling go and removing all folders that has go name in it, and then installing go again, and it workerd!

Solved it by going into the .git folder and manually deleting the HEAD.lock file

• My Mac is slow so I ran 2 git commits: one executed and the second was blocked by the first.
• I tried rm -f .git/index.lock
  • rm .git/refs/heads/[your-branch-name].lock
• <path to your repo>/.git/index.lock
• <path to your repo>/.git/modules/<path to your submodule>/index.lock

@Ankush:

1. find | grep '\.lock$'
2. rm -f ./.git/index.lock this was useful to check - no .lock file was lurking

I did what @Chole did - checked out of my IDE exited and looked at a git-status once more. Then ran a $git add . $git commit -m'msg' $git push

It cleared the 2 terminals that were running commands and solved the problem. Hope this helps someone - the diagnostics were good so thanks all, very helpful.

A slow Mac has caused this problem before - so now I just wait for a bit before running a second commit that conflicts with the first.

I faced same problem. I had to do little more to resolve this. First I deleted index.lock then I cloned fresh code from existing git repository location. I had my code changes in seperated location. I copiped .git folder and .gitignore file and pasted in the code folder where I had made code changes. Then I tried to commit and push, it worked smoothly. May be this impormation will be helpful if your problem doesn't by above given solutions.

use following command in case you are facing Another git process seems to be running in this repository e.g. an editor opened by 'git commit'. Please make sure all processes are terminated then try again. If it still fails, a git process may have crashed in this repository earlier: remove the file manually to continue.

rm -f .git/index.lock

git reset and after reset command use git status, git add, and git commit -a or git commit -m "your message", git push origin master.

Ok I ended up getting it to work by running '$ git rm .git/index.lock'... It's weird because I did that a few times before to no avail but hey computers right?

I got this error while pod update. I solved it by deleting the index.lock file in cocoapods's .git directory.

rm -f /Users/my_user_name/.cocoapods/repos/master/.git/index.lock

It might help someone.

It may be happening your branch is corrupted create new branch git branch #check branch. I have created a new branch and working .

branch -b "main"
git checkout -b "main"  #main is new branch
git add .
git commit -m "all files"
git remote add origin #**YOUR REPO**  https://github.com/tarun-techmarbles/wp-dump-sql-git-push.git
git push origin main  #push with new branch