Git push: “fatal 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository - fatal Could not read from remote repository.”

Question

I know similar questions have already been asked.

But, I believe my issue is due to a mistake I have previously made and therefore is different: let me explain.

Everything was working smoothly, as I could:

• git add . all the files from my local repository.
• git commit -m "message here" to add messages to my commits.
• git push origin master to upload my files to GitHub.
• git push heroku master to upload my files to Heroku.

However, at some point, I created a new branch locally called add-calendar-model in case next steps of the app development would go south...

... which is exactly what happened.

However, despite many attempts, I did not manage to get the initial code — i.e. the code from before I created the new branch — from the master branch to my local repository.

So, I decided to manually delete all the files from my local repository and git clone my master branch from GitHub.

This way, I got all my files back, but now, I cannot push any more to the remote repository.

Any time I try to run git push origin add-calendar-model or git push origin master, I get the following error:

fatal: 'origin' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

I am not very comfortable with Git and GitHub, as you may have guessed by now, and I have to admit that I have no clue about how to fix this.

Any idea?

Answer 1

First, check that your origin is set by running

git remote -v

This should show you all of the push / fetch remotes for the project.

If this returns with no output, skip to last code block.

Verify remote name / address

If this returns showing that you have remotes set, check that the name of the remote matches the remote you are using in your commands.

$git remote -v
myOrigin ssh://git@example.com:1234/myRepo.git (fetch)
myOrigin ssh://git@example.com:1234/myRepo.git (push)

# this will fail because `origin` is not set
$git push origin master

# you need to use
$git push myOrigin master

If you want to rename the remote or change the remote's URL, you'll want to first remove the old remote, and then add the correct one.

Remove the old remote

$git remote remove myOrigin

Add missing remote

You can then add in the proper remote using

$git remote add origin ssh://git@example.com:1234/myRepo.git

# this will now work as expected
$git push origin master

Answer 2

As Matt Clark stated above

However, origin might not be set, so skip the deleting step and simply attempting to add can clear this up.

git remote add origin <"clone">

Where "clone" is simply going into your GitHub repo and copying the "HTTPS clone URL" and pasting into GitBash

Answer 3

Make sure the config file at .git is correct...Check URL & Make sure your using the correct protocol for your keys ...ProjectWorkspace/.git/config

  ~Wrong url for git@bitbucket
[core]
    repositoryformatversion = 0
    filemode = true
    bare = false
    logallrefupdates = true
[remote "origin"]
    url = gitbucket.org:Prezyack/project-one-hello.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

 ~Wrong URL for SSH...
[core]
    repositoryformatversion = 0
    filemode = true
    bare = false
    logallrefupdates = true
    ignorecase = true
    precomposeunicode = true
[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = https://emmap1@bitbucket.org/emmap1/bitbucketspacestation.git
[branch "master"]
    remote = origin
    merge = refs/heads/master

We are looking at the URL... e.g: For bitbucket, expect git@bitbucket.org....If its gitbucket.org. make the necessary changes.. SAVE Try pushing again.

Answer 4

A similar error appears while pulling the changes from the origin. If you are trying in Intellij from the menu options, the pull might not work directly.

Go to terminal and type this command and this should work out: git pull origin master

Answer 5

Sometimes you don't have a local REF for pushing that branch back to the origin.
Try

git push origin master:master

This explicitly indicates which branch to push to (and from)