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My remote repository has hundreds of branches, so fetch is configured conservatively:

 % git config --get-all remote.origin.fetch +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master refs/heads/release/2.5:refs/remotes/origin/release/2.5

When I'm trying to work with a new remote branch, argumentless pull does not work:

 % git status On branch platform_4.33 nothing to commit, working tree clean % git pull --set-upstream origin platform_4.33 From github.com:eclipse-rcptt/org.eclipse.rcptt * branch platform_4.33 -> FETCH_HEAD Already up to date. % git pull Your configuration specifies to merge with the ref 'refs/heads/platform_4.33' from the remote, but no such ref was fetched.

I can complete the configuration manually:

 % git config --add remote.origin.fetch +refs/heads/platform_4.33:refs/remotes/origin/platform_4.33 % git pull From github.com:eclipse-rcptt/org.eclipse.rcptt * [new branch] platform_4.33 -> origin/platform_4.33 Already up to date.

git config is cumbersome, error prone and requires manual pruning once branch is deleted. I do not care about "Remote Tracking Branches", remote.origin.fetch would be empty if it did not break git pull.

How can I configure git pull (without arguments) with fewer or with simpler commands?

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

Your Git fetch configuration only pulls specific branches, so new ones aren’t fetched automatically.

To fix this, run git fetch --all before checking out a new branch git checkout --track origin/platform_4.33

or

change remote.origin.fetch to get all branches git config remote.origin.fetch "+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*"

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2 Comments

git checkout --track origin/platform_4.33 fatal: cannot set up tracking information; starting point 'origin/platform_4.33' is not a branch
refs/heads/* would fetch branches I do not need
2

Workaround

git pull does not need remote.origin.fetch setting. It can be removed.

git config --unset-all remote.origin.fetch git pull --set-upstream origin platform_4.33 git pull # Works as expected

With this configuration no extra branches are fetched and git pull properly handles "--set-upstream".

remote.origin.fetch setting is needed for git maintenance run --task prefetch and probably other activities, but I do not use prefetch or remote tracking branches, so this approach works for me.

I still have no idea why additive configuration is breaking things.

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