32
votes

When I do a git push, I see the following:

warning: updating the currently checked out branch; this may cause confusion,
as the index and working tree do not reflect changes that are now in HEAD.

I Googled for this message, and all I can find is a git mailing list discussion where the authors try to decide exactly how to make this message better to communicate to me what the real problem is.

How did I cause this, and how do I fix it?

3
@WilliamTate no, this post deals with a warning, linked post deals with errorCharlesB
Yes it is, I think it's the warning you received instead of the error in previous versions of Git.Nowhere man

3 Answers

47
votes

This happens when you are pushing to a non-bare repo. A bare repo is one that consists solely of a .git directory; a non-bare repo also includes a checkout. In general, you should not push to a non-bare repo; in fact, in future version of git, that will be forbidden. If you push to a non-bare repo, then the HEAD of that repo will be out of sync with the index and the working copy.

If you're creating a repo that people are going to want to push to, then you should create it using git init --bare (and git init --bare --shared if several user accounts need access to it), or git clone --bare if you're creating it by cloning an existing repo.

12
votes

In short, your remote repository is no longer a bare one, and you pushing on the remote checkout branch.

See "How to publish a Git repository":

A bare repository is one without a checked out working copy of the code. It only contains the git database.
As a general rule you should never push into a repository that contains changes in the working copy.
To ensure this doesn't happen, we're making the server repository a bare repository - it has no working copy

From here:

Note that the target of a "push" is normally a bare repository (i.e., with no work tree of its own).
You can also push to a repository that has a checked-out working tree, but the working tree will not be updated by the push.
This may lead to unexpected results if the branch you push to is the currently checked-out branch.

If a detached work tree is defined (which can for instance correspond to a web server's DocumentRoot), you need to :

Check, on your remote repository, the value of git config core.worktree and git config core.bare

5
votes

I made my repository bare by cloning a new, bare, repository from my messed up one, saving the messed-up one just in case, and replacing it with my cloned bare one.

I'm new to git, and when I set up the repsitory, I forgot to use the --bare option. Thanks for all your help!

I've since read the O'Reilly git book and now am a total git convert.