git: fatal: Cannot switch branch to a non-commit '12382'

git git-checkout
zaphodb picture zaphodb · Jun 19, 2015 · Viewed 16.8k times · Source

Someone else on my team created a new git branch, committed and pushed to the usual remote that we work with. When I try to check out this branch, I get this:

% git checkout 12382
fatal: Cannot switch branch to a non-commit '12382'

I have not had trouble checking out other branches from this repository; tried checking another one out right after this (one that I did not have a local copy of), and it worked fine.

I tried building a server with this branch on our Go pipeline, it worked fine - which means the server was successful in checking out that branch.

Tried this to check the status of things:

% git remote show origin
* remote origin
  Fetch URL: [email protected]:mycompany/myrepository.git
  Push  URL: [email protected]:mycompany/myrepository.git
  HEAD branch: stage
  Remote branches:
    10112                     tracked
    10198                     tracked
    10678                     tracked
...
    12382                     tracked    <<<---
...
  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
...
  Local refs configured for 'git push':
...

Could anyone suggest how to fix this? What went wrong?

Answer

knittl picture knittl · Jun 19, 2015

Git is confused, because 12382 looks like a commit hash. Use the fully qualified name to checkout the branch:

git checkout refs/heads/12382 --

or, if it's a remote branch:

git checkout refs/remotes/origin/12382 --

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