When pushing branches and tags, get error: cannot spawn git: no such file or directory
I have an existing, bare, Git repository created from importing our source and history from CVS. I make a mirror, using:
git clone --mirror git://aserver.adomain.com/myrepo
Then, I want to push all branches and tags to our internal Git repo host, but the push doesn't seem to see the bare repository as a Git repo.
I have tried the following:
git clone --mirror git://aserver.adomain.com/myrepo
git remote set-url origin http://[email protected]/project/myrepo.git
git push origin
which results in:
$ git push origin
Password for 'xxxx':
error: cannot spawn git: No such file or directory
or I try:
$ git remote rm origin
Note: Some branches outside the refs/remotes/ hierarchy were not removed;
to delete them, use:
...a whole lot of branches...
user@SOMEMACHINE /some/path/myrepo.git (BARE:master)
$ ls
HEAD config description hooks info objects packed-refs refs
user@SOMEMACHINE /some/path/myrepo.git (BARE:master)
$ git branch -a
...a whole lot of local branches...
user@SOMEMACHINE /some/path/myrepo.git (BARE:master)
$ git remote add mygithost http://[email protected]/project/myrepo.git
user@SOMEMACHINE /some/path/myrepo.git (BARE:master)
$ git push --all mygithost
Password for 'xxxx':
error: cannot spawn git: No such file or directory
What is the meaning of "cannot spawn git"?
How can I push a bare repo, with all branches, to an empty existing one?
I have googled several possibilities and reviewed several SO issues, but I don't see a solution to this problem. Clearly, my understanding of this process is flawed.
Update
I guess my understanding was not flawed. The error somehow misled me to think that there was something wrong with the bare repository, as I could clone and push branch by branch just fine from "regular" clones.
As it turns out, this is a bug in MSysGit. I moved to Linux because retaining all of the history was a requirement, in my case. I couldn't simply remove branches and tags, as these needed to be pushed to the empty remote repo. So, the following did work:
$ git remote rm origin
$ git clone --mirror git://aserver.adomain.com/myrepo
$ cd /some/path/myrepo.git
$ git remote add mygithost http://[email protected]/project/myrepo.git
$ git push --all mygithost
$ git push --tags mygithost
Answer
As this comment led to a solution (see edit at end of question), here it is reposted as an answer:
Are you using MSysGit? This has been known to happen if you have a large number of tags. See This post.