Why do I get “fatal: git status --porcelain failed”?

Question

This is a huge pain in the bum. I\'ve got this a few times before and I don\'t understand why. 5 mins ago the repo was fine and working, I move some files around (which is a

Answer 1

I had the same issue. Running git status in my root project's directory produced the following error:

fatal: This operation must be run in a work tree
fatal: 'git status --porcelain' failed in submodule js/object-subscribe

Running git status in the affected submodule (js/object-subscribe) would produce this error:

fatal: This operation must be run in a work tree

Running git init in that submodule's folder did it for me.

Answer 2

Delete the .git folder from the module. Please keep the backup of that folder if you want to use it future.

Answer 3

I know this is an old thread, but I just had the same problem and ended up solving in a different way. The git init didin't work for me. Posting here, in case it's useful to anyone else.

My repository has two submodules. After rebasing I started getting the error fatal: git status --porcelain failed.

The solution was to verify the property worktree in every submodule config file - e.g. <repository-checkout>/.git/modules/<submodule-name>/config.

I had one invalid path for the worktree property. It was linking to an unexisting folder that was changed and merged to master - probably due an error resolving conflicts.

Answer 4

For me it was different, nor git init solved the issue nor the worktree was wrong. The error that I had was

fatal: unable to create threaded lstat
fatal: 'git status --porcelain=2' failed in submodule ext/hdf5

The solution for me was git gc.

Answer 5

In case it helps anyone else, I just encountered the same issue and found that running git init in the project root fixed it.

Answer 6

In my case after moving moduleA/mySubmodule to moduleB/mySubmodule using git mv moduleA moduleB with git 2.12.2, I ran into the following error:

$ git status
fatal: Could not chdir to '[../]moduleA/mySubmodule': No such file or directory
fatal: 'git status --porcelain' failed in submodule mySubmodule
fatal: 'git status --porcelain' failed in submodule moduleB

Then I did the following (Maybe not in this order)

1. Manually update .gitmodules entry to moduleB
2. Enter .git/modules and rename old module folder
3. Enter moduleB and delete submodules folder
4. Run git submodule sync and git submodule update

After that, I could run git status again without problems.