MacOS Homebrew Mojave Git – Fix Git Clone Error ‘Multiple Updates for Ref Not Allowed’

githomebrewmacosmojave

I did a lot of operations on my computer last night, basically updating/upgrading(?) brew, which installed a new git version, updated python, lots of stuff and today I figured I couldn't clone a repository anymore.

git clone git@github.com:UnlyEd/serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups.git
Cloning into 'serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 589, done.
remote: Total 589 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 589
Receiving objects: 100% (589/589), 304.18 KiB | 862.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (333/333), done.
fatal: multiple updates for ref 'refs/tags/v1.0.0' not allowed

I tried different repo, I get the same error every time, so it's my installation that is broken somehow.

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling git (with brew) but it didn't change anything.

I checked other git commands and I'm still able to pull/commit

I'm using git 2.21.0

I don't really know what to do to fix it and I don't know what caused this. Also, I don't use the git clone command on a daily basis so it could have broken before, but I feel like it's related to upgrading homebrew.

Adding more details based on comments/questions:

type git
git is an alias for LANG=en_GB git

mkdir ~/gitclone && cd ~/gitclone && git clone git@github.com:UnlyEd/serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups.git
Cloning into 'serverless-plugin-dynamodb-backups'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 589, done.
remote: Total 589 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 589
Receiving objects: 100% (589/589), 304.18 KiB | 828.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (333/333), done.
fatal: multiple updates for ref 'refs/tags/v1.0.0' not allowed

Best Answer

Do you have a custom .gitconfig? I had to remove the following parameter from mine in order for cloning to work again:

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

git v2.21.0 was released a few days ago, so perhaps something changed under the hood. I need to go check out the release notes.

Anyways, hope this helps!

Adding a bit more background context, this line was very common to fetch the tags by default. It allowed to do git fetch which would also do a git fetch --tags equivalent under the hood.

Basically, if you want to fetch tags when you do a git fetch with this v2.21 git version, you can create an alias in your .gitconfig as follow:

[alias]
    fetch = git fetch --tags

Doing this and removing the fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* will result in the same behaviour, but compatible with git v2.21

See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1204190/does-git-fetch-tags-include-git-fetch/20608181#20608181 for in-depth explanation and history changes.

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