Git merge is not possible because I have unmerged files

Question

git continues to confuse me with its unhelpful error warnings This one really deserves a prize   git merge is not possible because you have unmerged files   My situation  My master branch on github was edited  directly in the browser  while my local master branch was also edited   I wrongly suppose you could simply merge the two versions and be done with it  but also  I cannot merge - because my files are unmerged   git merge remote master   results in  error  merge is not possible because you have unmerged files  hint  Fix them up in the work tree  and then use  git add rm  lt file gt   hint  as appropriate to mark resolution and make a commit  fatal  Exiting because of an unresolved conflict    So  after adding and committing the local change and then trying to merge again  I get   merge  remote master - not something we can merge   Clearly I am missing something essential here    Do I have the wrong idea about what merging means  How do I fix this issue of having a different remote master   local master branch

User · Answer

It might be the Unmerged paths that cause error  Merging is not possible because you have unmerged files   If so  try  git status  if it says  You have unmerged paths   do as suggested  either resolve conflicts and then commit or abort the merge entirely with git merge --abort  You might also see files listed under Unmerged paths  which you can resolve by doing git rm  lt file gt

User · Answer

Another potential cause for this  Intellij was involved in my case  not sure that mattered though   trying to merge in changes from a main branch into a branch off of a feature branch    In other words  merging  main  into  current  in the following arrangement   main       --feature               --current   I resolved all conflicts and GiT reported unmerged files and I was stuck until I merged from main into feature  then feature into current

User · Answer

I ran into the same issue and couldn t decide between laughing or smashing my head on the table when I read this error     What git really tries to tell you   You are already in a merge state and need to resolve the conflicts there first    You tried a merge and a conflict occured  Then  git stays in the merge state and if you want to resolve the merge with other commands git thinks you want to execute a new merge and so it tells you you can t do this because of your current unmerged files     You can leave this state with git merge --abort and now try to execute other commands   In my case I tried a pull and wanted to resolve the conflicts by hand when the error occured

User · Answer

The error message       merge  remote master - not something we can merge   is saying that Git doesn t recognize remote master  This is probably because you don t have a  remote  named  remote   You have a  remote  named  origin    Think of  remotes  as an alias for the url to your Git server  master is your locally checked-out version of the branch  origin master is the latest version of master from your Git server that you have fetched  downloaded   A fetch is always safe because it will only update the  origin x  version of your branches   So  to get your master branch back in sync  first download the latest content from the git server   git fetch   Then  perform the merge   git merge origin master      But  perhaps the better approach would be   git pull origin master   The pull command will do the fetch and merge for you in one step

User · Answer

I repeatedly had the same challenge sometime ago  This problem occurs mostly when you are trying to pull from the remote repository and you have some files on your local instance conflicting with the remote version  if you are using git from an IDE such as IntelliJ  you will be prompted and allowed to make a choice if you want to retain your own changes or you prefer the changes in the remote version to overwrite yours   If you don t make any choice then you fall into this conflict  all you need to do is run   git merge --abort   The unresolved conflict will be cleared off   And you can continue what you were doing before the break

[git] Git merge is not possible because I have unmerged files

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