[SOLVED] git p4 submit fails

I tried running git p4 submit on a repo that I've been running as an interim bridge between git and perforce. Multiple people are using the repo as a remote and its being periodically submitted back to perforce.

It's been working mostly fine, except for some duplicated perforce commits whose bizarre behaviour I can't seem to reproduce. Then one day out of the blue I get this error. I can no longer push any git commits to perforce.

user@hostname:~/Source/code$ git p4 submit -M --export-labels
Perforce checkout for depot path //depot/perforce/workspace/ located at /home/user/Source/git-p4-area/perforce/workspace/
Synchronizing p4 checkout...
... - file(s) up-to-date.
Applying ffa390f comments in config xml files
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/first.xml#3 - opened for edit
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/second.xml#3 - opened for edit
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/third.xml#3 - opened for edit
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/forth.xml#3 - opened for edit
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/fifth.xml#1 - opened for edit
error: patch failed: sub/folder/structure/first.xml:1
error: sub/folder/structure/first.xml: patch does not apply
error: patch failed: sub/folder/structure/second.xml:1
error: sub/folder/structure/second.xml: patch does not apply
error: patch failed: sub/folder/structure/third.xml:1
error: sub/folder/structure/third.xml: patch does not apply
error: patch failed: sub/folder/structure/forth.xml:1
error: sub/folder/structure/forth.xml: patch does not apply
error: patch failed: sub/folder/structure/fifth.xml:1
error: sub/folder/structure/fifth.xml: patch does not apply
Unfortunately applying the change failed!
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/first.xml#1 - was edit, reverted
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/second.xml#3 - was edit, reverted
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/third.xml#3 - was edit, reverted
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/forth.xml#3 - was edit, reverted
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/fifth.xml#3 - was edit, reverted
No commits applied.

That error looks a lot like this error:

git-p4 submit fails with patch does not apply

except I'm NOT doing any keyword substitution, so I have no idea what it could be. adding --verbose doesn't seem to help explain much (I don't have that command output on hand)

The only change I could imagine is that I added a .gitattributes file with the following contents below at the time that I made the commit. However, commits made before this commit while that gitattributes file was in place did work, so it couldn't be that (I've since made the .gitattributes file more detailed)

* text eol=lf

I have tried rolling back the commits in this remote repo to right before this offending commit, and then repushing them from my repo to this remote repo and then resubmitting. Same behavior. I tried rolling back, and making different edits to the same file, repushing, resubmitting. Same behavior. And it only seems to happen with these files. Since the rollback I have tried making edits to other files and they work. I tried running dos2unix to force unix line endings on offending files, and that didn't fix it either.

What command can give me a better explanation of what is going on here? Is there a git log file I could tail? Any assistance would be appreciated.

edit: I've retested my issue with and without the .gitattributes file. that made no difference. currently my global core.autocrlf setting is input. But with the .gitattributes file missing that seemed to make no difference. Here's what it looked like when I retested it with just one of the offending files with --verbose turned on.

user@hostname:/code$ git p4 submit -M --export-labels --verbose
Reading pipe: git name-rev HEAD
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', 'git-p4.allowSubmit']
Reading pipe: git rev-parse --symbolic --remotes
Reading pipe: git rev-parse p4/master
Reading pipe: git cat-file commit 0457c7589ea679dcc0c9114b34f8f30bc2ee08cf
Reading pipe: git cat-file commit HEAD~0
Reading pipe: git cat-file commit HEAD~1
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', 'git-p4.conflict']
Origin branch is remotes/p4/master
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', '--bool', 'git-p4.useclientspec']
Opening pipe: ['p4', '-G', 'where', '//depot/perforce/workspace/...']
Perforce checkout for depot path //depot/perforce/workspace/ located at /home/user/Source/git-p4-area/perforce/workspace/
Synchronizing p4 checkout...
... - file(s) up-to-date.
Opening pipe: p4 -G opened ...
Reading pipe: ['git', 'rev-list', '--no-merges', 'remotes/p4/master..master']
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', '--bool', 'git-p4.skipUserNameCheck']
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', 'git-p4.detectCopies']
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', '--bool', 'git-p4.detectCopiesHarder']
Reading pipe: ['git', 'show', '-s', '--format=format:%h %s', 'ef3b95f5fec193fe2612b28e2e3b5e7f8ba9419e']
Applying ef3b95f making test change
Opening pipe: p4 -G users
Reading pipe: ['git', 'log', '--max-count=1', '--format=%ae', 'ef3b95f5fec193fe2612b28e2e3b5e7f8ba9419e']
Reading pipe: git diff-tree -r -M "ef3b95f5fec193fe2612b28e2e3b5e7f8ba9419e^" "ef3b95f5fec193fe2612b28e2e3b5e7f8ba9419e"
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/first.xml#3 - opened for edit
<stdin>:17: trailing whitespace.
<!-- comment line 1 -->
<stdin>:18: trailing whitespace.
<!-- comment line 2 -->
<stdin>:19: trailing whitespace.
<!-- comment line 3 -->
error: patch failed: sub/folder/structure/first.xml:1
error: sub/folder/structure/first.xml: patch does not apply
Unfortunately applying the change failed!
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', '--bool', 'git-p4.attemptRCSCleanup']
//depot/perforce/workspace/sub/folder/structure/first.xml#3 - was edit, reverted
No commits applied.
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', '--bool', 'git-p4.exportLabels']
Opening pipe: ['p4', '-G', 'labels', '//depot/ipstor.maple/automation/...']
Reading pipe: ['git', 'tag']
Reading pipe: ['git', 'config', 'git-p4.labelExportRegexp']