[git] Git - How to fix "corrupted" interactive rebase?

I managed to create a little mess in my local git repository. I was trying to fix a broken commit by using the following instructions. Before running the "git commit --amend" (and after the git rebase --interactive) I decided that my changes were incorrect and so I executed "git reset HEAD --hard". Not a good idea, I tell you.

Now the interactive rebase seems to be "stuck". Git shows the current branch as (|REBASE-m). Every command (cd .., ls, git rebase...) inside my repository gives the following error:

cat: .git/rebase-merge/head-name: No such file or directory

Here's how git rebase --abort looks like:

$ git rebase --abort
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/quiet: No such file or directory
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/head-name: No such file or directory
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/orig-head: No such file or directory
HEAD is now at 4c737fb Revert "Modified file names"
rm: cannot remove `c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/done': Permission denied
rm: cannot remove directory `c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge': Directory
not empty
cat: .git/rebase-merge/head-name: No such file or directory

Here's the result of git rebase --continue:

$ git rebase --continue
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/prev_head: No such file or directory
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/end: No such file or directory
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/msgnum: No such file or directory
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/onto: No such file or directory
cat: c:/_work/project/src/git/.git/rebase-merge/quiet: No such file or directory
prev_head must be defined
cat: .git/rebase-merge/head-name: No such file or directory

Any ideas? I would like to reset the situation back to the state it was before I started my well-thought rebase operation.

Here's how git log --oneline shows the situation:

4c737fb Revert "Modified file names"
247ac02 Modified file names
33141e6 Message modifications
10a4a04 Modified db script

And this is fine.

I'm using msysgit v1.7.0.2.

In my case eighter git rebase --abort and git rebase --continue was throwing:

error: could not read '.git/rebase-apply/head-name': No such file or directory

I managed to fix this issue by manually removing: .git\rebase-apply directory.

I had the same problem. I used process explorer as suggested in other post (i am not able to find that post) and figured out which process has a lock on the file and kill it. then execute the --continue or --abort as per needs

tried everything else but a reboot, what worked for me is rm -fr .git/REBASE_HEAD

I had a similar problem due to a zombie vim.exe process. Killing it in Task Manager, followed by a git rebase --abort fixed it.

Had same problem in Eclipse. Could not Rebase=>abort from Eclipse.

Executing git rebase --abort from Git Bash Worked for me.

In my case it was because I had opened SmartGit's Log in the respective Git project and Total Commander in the respective project directory. When I closed both I was able to rebase without any problem.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect Total Commander, i.e. Windows having a lock on opened directory the git rebase was trying to something with.

Friendly advice: When you try to fix something, always do one change at a time. ;)

Create a file with this name:

touch .git/rebase-merge/head-name

and than use git rebase

I am using git in eclipse and I was having the same problem.

Eventually I found that the "Rebase ..." menu entry was temporarily transformed into a sub-menu.

Team-> Rebase -> Abort

It worked for me.

I got stuck in this. I created the head-name file, and then I ran into another error saying it couldn't find the onto file, so I created that file. Then I got another error saying could not read '.git/rebase-apply/onto': No such file or directory.

So I looked at the git documentation for rebasing and found another command:

git rebase --quit

This set me back on my branch with no changes, and I could start my rebase over again, good as new.

I'm using git version 2.19.2.windows.1.

the only thing that worked for me was to remove the .git/rebase-apply/ directory and do a git reset --hard.

In my case after testing all this options and still having issues i tried sudo git rebase --abort and it did the whole thing

Thanks @Laura Slocum for your answer

I messed things up while rebasing and got a detached HEAD with an

 error: could not read orig-head

that prevented me from finishing the rebasing.

The detached HEAD seem to contain precisely my correct rebase desired state, so I ran

rebase --quit

and after that I checked out a new temp branch to bind it to the detached head.

By comparing it with the branch I wanted to rebase, I can see the new temp branch is exactly in the state I wanted to reach. Thanks

On Windows, if you are unwilling or unable to restart the machine see below.

Install Process Explorer: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

In Process Explorer, Find > File Handle or DLL ...

Type in the file name mentioned in the error (for my error it was 'git-rebase-todo' but in the question above, 'done').

Process Explorer will highlight the process holding a lock on the file (for me it was 'grep').

Kill the process and you will be able to abort the git action in the standard way.

If you get below state and rebase does not work anymore,

$ git status
rebase in progress; onto (null)
You are currently rebasing.
  (all conflicts fixed: run "git rebase --continue")

Then first run,

$ git rebase -quit

And then restore previous state from reflog,

$ git reflog
97f7c6f (HEAD, origin/master, origin/HEAD) HEAD@{0}: pull --rebase: checkout 97f7c6f292d995b2925c2ea036bb4823a856e1aa
4035795 (master) HEAD@{1}: commit (amend): Adding 2nd commit
d16be84 HEAD@{2}: commit (amend): Adding 2nd commit
8577ca8 HEAD@{3}: commit: Adding 2nd commit
3d2088d HEAD@{4}: reset: moving to head~
52eec4a HEAD@{5}: commit: Adding initial commit

Using,

$ git checkout HEAD@{1} #or
$ git checkout master #or
$ git checkout 4035795 #or

With SublimeText 3 on Windows, the problem is fixed by just closing the Sublime windows used for interactive commit edition.

I have tried all the above steps mentioned but nothing worked for me. Finally, restarting the computer worked for this issue :D

Once you have satisfactorily completed rebasing X number of commits , the last command must be git rebase --continue . That completes the process and exits out of the rebase mode .