git subtree pull says that the working tree has modifications, but git status says it doesn't. What gives?

Question

If I do this in one of my repositories:

git subtree pull --prefix=frameworks/AquaticPrime --squash AquaticPrime

I get this:

Working tree has modifications.  Cannot add.

If I do this (in the same place, of course):

git status

I get this:

# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)

I'm not quite sure what's going on here. The git status command implies that I don't have modifications, so I'm assuming that the git subtree pull is referring to modifications in a different branch related to the subtree, but it's not entirely clear.

Can anyone provide enlightenment?

Answer 1

I just had the same problem. From GIT source, error is thrown when command git diff-index HEAD returns result, even if git status says working tree is clean.

To avoid this error, in my case, I re-checkout the current branch of working tree , and everything seems OK : git checkout <branch>

It's a bit confused, but if someone can explain why ...

Answer 2

I got around this now. My problem seemed to me that the repository was brand new: I had never committed anything to it. Once I committed a file to the repo, I was able to move past this error.

However, using the command git subtree add C:\gitTest\repos\subA -d --prefix subA I got the new error:

fatal just how do you expect me to merge 0 trees?

After messing around for a minute, I figured out it requires that a specific revision be passed to it. So this command seems to have succeeded:

git subtree add C:\gitTest\repos\subA HEAD -d --prefix subA

And obviously you don't need the -d debug flag.

Answer 3

git reset --hard fixed it to me

From git reset --help

--hard Resets the index and working tree. Any changes to tracked files in the working tree since are discarded.

Answer 4

I just had this problem, when I:

• added a subtree;
• realized, I added it incorrectly (to a wrong directory);
• removed it with rm;
• tried to import it again (to the correct place).

Although puppet diff was -- correctly -- showing nothing, the git diff-index HEAD listed each of the files I just deleted as "deleted" -- even though I never commit-ed (much less push-ed) anything.

I believe, this is a bug in git (using 2.7.0 here)... Bug or not, the work-around is to switch to any other branch (with the usual git checkout ....) and then back to yours. Hope, this helps someone -- even if not the original asker.

Answer 5

If you are using Windows, try to use Git Bash instead of PowerShell or cmd.exe. This fixed the problem in my case.

Answer 6

Try to pull without --squash as it is described in this stackoverflow question.