gitgithubbitbucketsourcetree

Git cannot lock ref 'HEAD': unable to resolve reference HEAD

I'm trying to commit the changes to my repository but I receive the error below:

git -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false commit -q -F C:\Users\Contronym\AppData\Local\Temp\bkdweixb.mnu
fatal: cannot lock ref 'HEAD': unable to resolve reference HEAD: Invalid argument

Completed with errors, see above.

I'm using bitbucket and SourceTree.

What's the reason for this commit failing? I was able to commit just fine the last 3 commits over the past week. Then, all of a sudden, I receive this error.

EDIT

I ran git gc and these are the results:

$ git gc
error: bad ref for HEAD
error: bad ref for HEAD
error: inflate: data stream error (unknown compression method)
fatal: loose object 53b65bd9b4fec7f6a7b0b3313c68199a18804327 (stored in .git/objects/53/b65bd9b4fec7f6a7b0b3313c68199a18804327) is corrupt
error: failed to run repack

I checked the directory .git/objects/53/b65bd9b4fec7f6a7b0b3313c68199a18804327 but that doesn't exist. There's two other files there, but b65bd9b4fec7f6a7b0b3313c68199a18804327 doesn't exist.

Solution

  • I had the same problem and the only solution that I found was to navigate to the head like so:

    .git/refs/heads/branch_name

    And I deleted the head file. Then I went to the console and I used the command:

    git reset

    Then all the files were unstaged so add them and commit them afterwards.