GitHub: Clone succeeded, but checkout failed

jamie_y picture jamie_y · Feb 26, 2014 · Viewed 71.8k times · Source

I am having some problems working with git clone.The files are downloaded in my local git folder. Running the command

git checkout -f HEAD gives me-

Error:

'The unable to write new index file error caused by the lack of disk space'.

I've manually removed big files from my computer, but still getting the same error.

Cloning into 'ffmpeg'...
remote: Counting objects: 7890, done.  
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4412/4412), done.
Receiving objects: 100% (7890/7890), 299.75 MiB | 24.19 MiB/s, done.
remote: Total 7890 (delta 3346), reused 7846 (delta 3317)
Resolving deltas: 100% (3346/3346), done.
Checking out files: 100% (7019/7019), done.
fatal: unable to write new index file
warning: Clone succeeded, but checkout failed.
You can inspect what was checked out with 'git status'
and retry the checkout with 'git checkout -f HEAD'

Answer

vonbrand picture vonbrand · Feb 26, 2014

When you clone, git gets all the objects from the remote end (compressed and stashed into the .git directory). Once it has all the pieces, it proceeds to unpack all files needed to (re)create the working directory. It is this step that fails, due to not having enough space. This might be due to a disk that is full, or a disk quota exceeded (on shared machines, quotas are often enforced to avoid having users grab more than their fair share of space).

Delete your cruft. Make sure you aren't trying to squeeze the Linux kernel or some such monster repository into your few megabytes of account space.