Re: Switching branches not working in a cloned repo

["Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org>]

From: "Paul Williamson" <paul.williamson@mediamiser.com>
> Hi,
>
> We use git extensively on a number of repos. Recently, we have had a 
> problem with one of them. This repo has a 'web_dev' branch. For copies of 
> the repo cloned before a certain (recent but unidentified) time, we could 
> 'git checkout' between master and web_dev and everything would be normal.
>
> However, now if we clone the repo, we can no longer do 'git checkout 
> web_dev'. Git doesn't complain, in fact there is no feedback and we are 
> still in the master branch. Running 'git branch -r' still shows the branch 
> as existing at origin.

Have you tried `git ls-remote` ?

The `branch -r` just lists the local 'rtb's (IIUC).

It could be someone has accidently pruned or deleted that branch at the 
remote.

What version are you (they) on?

>
> If we try 'git branch web_dev' we then see web_dev listed locally and can 
> switch to it BUT on closer inspection we realise that this action has 
> created a new branch off master.
>
> The first time we saw this was under Bash on Windows, so we thought maybe 
> it was a beta problem, but a) other repos work as expected under that 
> environment, and b) under cygwin, pulling the same repo to a new directory 
> alongside an older copy shows that the problem occurs with the new clone, 
> but not the one that that was cloned longer ago.
>
> Also in this situation, there are no local outstanding code changes that 
> might cause problems switching branches. This occurs right from a cleanly 
> cloned repo.
>
> It seems something has gone wrong with this repo, and we don't know what. 
> It's a tough problem to google, and I was not able to search the gmane 
> archives (DNS errors).

Gmane had to quit. Try http://public-inbox.org/git (see the help link)

>
> Any idea how to investigate?
>
> Thanks,
> Paul
--
philip