git refusing to fetch into current branch

Question

I set up a remote repository and I can push new changes to it, but I cannot fetch from it, I always get the (rather cryptic) error message:

fatal: Refusing t         


        

Answer 1

Are you actually typing Git commands into the command line, or are you running the Git executable from your own code?
If you're running it from code, are you sure that Git is trying to fetch into the correct local directory?

There are two possible ways to do this:

1. Use the options provided by your programming language to set the correct working directory before executing Git
   (C# example, because that's what I'm using)

2. Always pass the -C parameter to Git to specify the directory with the local repo.

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I have a project where I'm calling the Git executable from C# code, and I got the same error message like in the question when I accidentally forgot to set the -C parameter.