how to address Git error “the requested upstream branch 'upstream/master' does not exist”

Question

I am attempting to follow some steps to contribute to a repository on GitHub and one of the steps is not working. The steps are here: https://github.com/wdbm/qTox/blob/master/CO

Answer 1

git fetch upstream master:master: this work only when you are not on master. If you are on master, a simple git fetch upstream is enough.

Then you can link your local master to the remote tracking branch upstream/master (which has just been fetched)

git branch -u upstream/master master

Then you can use git pull to update master.
Again, if you are not on master, then yes, git fetch upstream master:master will work.

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Luh_ mentions also a typo issue in the refspec: see "git fetch doesn't fetch all branches".