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When I run the command git branch -a I see a list of branches associated with a remote that no longer exists. ex:

remotes/does-not-exist/branch1 remotes/does-not-exist/branch2 remotes/origin/dev remotes/origin/feature3

I want to remove the branches associated with does-not-exist from the list above. However if I run the command git remote prune does-not-exist I get the following error

conq: repository does not exist. fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

How can I remove the branches associated with does-not-exist? Should I just delete the folder under .git/refs/remotes/?

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  • For the time being, I "resolved" this issue by blowing away the local repo folder and cloning from the remote again. Commented Nov 5, 2015 at 20:52

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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I merged a branch to the master using the GitLab web page.

On my local shell, the branch was still present

git branch -a * 9-deploy master remotes/origin/9-deploy remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master remotes/origin/master

Deleted the local branch with

git branch -d 9-deploy

Deleted the reference to the remote branch with

git fetch -p

Used the following reference to find commands

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I had the same issue and was finally able to remove them using git branch -Dr does-not-exist/branch1.

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You should remove the remote, not branches. By this the branches will be deleted too. git remote remove does-not-exist.

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Thanks, @kan. I tried this, and perhaps I am just in a bad state, but this did not work for me.
I ran the command you provided, and then ran git branch -a again and I still saw the branches associated with the remote that no longer exists.
@AaronHoffman however, forced method to delete a reference is git update-ref -d remotes/does-not-exist/branch1.
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To delete remote branches, I run git push origin --delete <branch>. So in your case, you may run the following:

git push does-not-exist --delete branch1 git push does-not-exist --delete branch2

I hope this helps.

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2 Comments

Thanks, @dlstadther, however this is not working for me. The remote itself no longer exists, so attempting to delete the remote branch also does not exist. I get the same error as git remote prune above.
@AaronHoffman Have you found this post?

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