fatal: ambiguous argument 'origin': unknown revision or path not in the working tree

Question

I used git diff origin often in the past.

In a different environment it does not work. I have no clue why.

user@host> git diff origin         


        

Answer 1

If origin points to a bare repository on disk, this error can happen if that directory has been moved (even if you update the working copy's remotes). For example

$ mv /path/to/origin /somewhere/else
$ git remote set-url origin /somewhere/else
$ git diff origin/master
fatal: ambiguous argument 'origin': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.

Pulling once from the new origin solves the problem:

$ git stash
$ git pull origin master
$ git stash pop