git: updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do not have locally

delos picture delos · Jun 23, 2014 · Viewed 271.8k times · Source

I'm working on a team with a few developers using git on BitBucket. We are all working on a dev branch, not pushing to master until a release.

One of the developers committed incorrect code that overwrote my own by accident, and now I am trying to push the correct code back to the repo. I have been reading on this error for a few days now, I can't push to the repo anymore because I am getting the following error:

 ! [rejected]        master -> dev (fetch first)
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://[email protected]/repo_user/repo_name.git'
hint: Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do
hint: not have locally. This is usually caused by another repository pushing
hint: to the same ref. You may want to first integrate the remote changes
hint: (e.g., 'git pull ...') before pushing again.
hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.

I follow the instructions and pull, but then I receive a merge conflict. After entering a message for the merge conflict, my local code is now the incorrect code that the other developer uploaded by accident (as expected from the pull). So I replace the incorrect code with the backup I copied before commiting, and when I try to push again, I get the same error.

It is really frustrating, I really want to help out my team and contribute, but I can't because of this error. Does anyone know how to solve this issue? I would very much appreciate any help.

These are the commands I run in order to commit, if it helps anyone out:

git pull remotename master:dev
git add --all
git commit -m "some message"
git pull remotename master:dev
git push remotename master:dev

I would have thought that if I kept this order, I would not receive merge conflicts. I guess I was wrong. Thanks again

Update: I should add that I have looked for a few hours on Google and stackoverflow, and followed different instructions, but I still can't push to the dev branch.

Answer

Donal picture Donal · Feb 13, 2017

You can override any checks that git does by using "force push". Use this command in terminal

git push -f origin master

However, you will potentially ignore the existing work that is in remote - you are effectively rewriting the remote's history to be exactly like your local copy.