funny refname error when creating a new remote branch

Question

So I've gotten a project up on github and everything is dandy. Now I want to create a new branch.

Here's what I've done:

1. created a new local branch
2. pushed the new branch to github

Here's the problem: During the push to my remote, I get this error:

Repository ssh://git@github.com/<username>/ProjectColossus.git

funny refname
error: refusing to create funny ref 'workingBranch' remotely

My remote repo is called origin, so I've tried using that refname as suggested in another answer here on stackoverflow, but I get the same error. I've also tried using the same name as my new local branch, in the "Target Ref Name:" field before the remote push, but I really just am not sure what I'm doing at this point. I know there's something I'm not getting about git remote pushes, so a little explanation would be super helpful. I'm pretty new to git and version control, but I'm an intermediate level programmer (starting second year CS in January).

Answer 1

In the Target Ref Name, probably you have to add refs/heads:

refs/heads/name_of_your_new_branch

In your specific case:

refs/heads/workingBranch

(at least, it is the way with Bitbucket - egit, the Eclipse plugin for Eclipse)

Answer 2

I find it a litle bit silly that EGit expects something like V0.0.1 when you create a Tag (placing the tag to /refs/tags/V0.0.1 location in the local repository) and it expects to provide the refname like /refs/tags/V0.0.1 when you push the Tag into the remote repository

Answer 3

For what it is worth we just had this issue - we are using VS2013 and creating a branch with /refs/heads/ gave an error. We ended up downloading Source Tree from Atlassian (we are using Stash to house our code). This showed an "uncommited change" which was the DesignTimeResolveAssemblyReferencesInput.cache file being altered - something VS2013 was doing. We undid this change and created a new branch, and this solved the problem.

Hopefully this will point somebody in the right direction if the above methods do not work.