Git checkout updating paths is incompatible with switching branches

Question

My problem is related to Fatal Git error when switching branch   I try to fetch a remote branch with the command  git checkout -b local-name origin remote-name   but I get this error message      fatal  git checkout  updating paths is incompatible with switching branches    Did you intend to checkout  origin remote-name  which can not be resolved as commit    If I manually create a branch and then pull the remote branch  it works  just as making a new clone and checking the branch out   Why does it not work on the repository I work with

User · Accepted Answer

I believe this occurs when you are trying to checkout a remote branch that your local git repo is not aware of yet. Try:

git remote show origin

If the remote branch you want to checkout is under "New remote branches" and not "Tracked remote branches" then you need to fetch them first:

git remote update
git fetch

Now it should work:

git checkout -b local-name origin/remote-name

User · Answer

Could your issue be linked to this other SO question  checkout problem    i e   a problem related to    an old version of Git a curious checkout syntax  which should be  git checkout -b   lt new branch gt     lt start point gt    with    lt start point gt   referring to the name of a commit at which to start the new branch  and  origin remote-name  is not that   whereas git branch does support a start point being the name of a remote branch    Note  what the checkout sh script says is     if test         newbranch force merge    then     die  git checkout  updating paths is incompatible with switching branches forcing hint    fi   It is like the syntax  git checkout -b     remote branch name  was both renaming the branch and resetting the new starting point of the new branch  which is deemed incompatible

User · Answer

For me I had a typo and my remote branch didn t exist  Use git branch -a to list remote branches

User · Answer

I suspect there is no remote branch named remote-name  but that you ve inadvertently created a local branch named origin remote-name   Is it possible you at some point typed    git branch origin remote-name   Thus creating a local branch named origin remote-name   Type this command    git checkout origin remote-name   You ll either see    Switched to branch  origin remote-name    which means it s really a mis-named local branch  or   Note  moving to  origin rework-isscoring  which isn t a local branch If you want to create a new branch from this checkout  you may do so  now or later  by using -b with the checkout command again  Example    git checkout -b    which means it really is a remote branch

User · Answer

After having tried most of what I could read in this thread without success  I stumbled across this one  Remote branch not showing up in  quot git branch -r quot   It turned out that my  git config file was incorrect  After doing a simple fix all branches showed up   Going from   remote  origin       url   http   stash server com scm EX project git     fetch    refs heads master refs remotes origin master   to   remote  origin       url   http   stash server com scm EX project git     fetch    refs heads   refs remotes origin     Did the trick

User · Answer

It s not very intuitive but this works well for me         mkdir remote git  amp  cd remote git  amp  git init   git remote add origin  REPO   git fetch origin  BRANCH refs remotes origin  BRANCH           THEN run the git branch --track command        git branch --track  BRANCH origin  BRANCH

User · Answer

none of the above worked for me  My situation is slightly different  my remote branch is not at origin  but in a different repository   git remote add remoterepo GIT URL git git fetch remoterepo git checkout -b branchname remoterepo branchname   tip  if you don t see the remote branch in the following output git branch -v -a there is no  way to check it out   Confirmed working on 1 7 5 4

User · Answer

After fetching a zillion times still added remotes didn t show up  although the blobs were in the pool  Turns out the --tags option shouldn t be given to git remote add for whatever reason  You can manually remove it from the  git config to make git fetch create the refs

User · Answer

Not sure if this is helpful or exactly relevant to your question  but if you are trying to fetch and checkout only a single branch from the remote repository  then the following git commands will do the trick   url   lt  lt  URL TO REPOSITORY  gt  gt  branch   lt  lt  BRANCH NAME  gt  gt   git init git remote add origin  url git fetch origin  branch origin  branch git checkout -b  branch --track origin  branch

User · Answer

For me what worked was   git fetch   Which pulls all the refs down to your machine for all the branches on remote  Then I could do   git checkout  lt branchname gt    and that worked perfectly  Similar to the top voted answer  but a little more simple

User · Answer

Alternate syntax   git fetch origin remote branch name local branch name

[git] Git checkout: updating paths is incompatible with switching branches

Examples related to git

Examples related to git-checkout

Examples related to remote-branch