Remote branch is not showing up in "git branch -r"

Question

I have been pushing to a remote Bitbucket repository and recently a colleague has pushed a new branch he created to the same repository.

I'm trying to fetch the changes he uploaded.

 $ git branch -a * master localbranch1 localbranch2 remotes/origin/master

$ git branch -r origin/master

In the web UI for Bitbucket I can see the branch he has made. How can I do this?

Next try:

$ git fetch bitbucket Password for 'https://[email protected]': From https://bitbucket.org/user/repo * branch HEAD -> FETCH_HEAD

If the branch he created is called new_branch_b should I be expecting to see the following?

$ git branch -r origin/master origin/new_branch_b

Third try:

$ git remote update Fetching bitbucket Password for 'https://[email protected]': From https://bitbucket.org/user/repo * branch HEAD -> FETCH_HEAD $ git branch -r origin/master

Fourth try:

[remote "bitbucket"] url = https://[email protected]/user/repo.git

I called the remote bitbucket rather than origin (at least that's what I recall; I set it up a while ago)

Fifth try:

I updated the Bitbucket remote configuration as per kan's answer:

$ git config -e

[remote "bitbucket"] url = https://[email protected]/user/repo.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/bitbucket/*

For most people it will be called origin:

[remote "origin"] url = https://[email protected]/user/repo.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

Afterwards,

$ git remote update Fetching bitbucket Password for 'https://[email protected]': remote: Counting objects: 48, done. remote: Compressing objects: 100% (32/32), done. remote: Total 35 (delta 21), reused 0 (delta 0) Unpacking objects: 100% (35/35), done. From https://bitbucket.org/user/repo * [new branch] branch_name1 -> origin/branch_name1 * [new branch] branch_name2 -> origin/branch_name2

.... and so on.

I think git fetch origin would also work for git remote update.

Cool, but maybe it had more sense to use refs/remotes/bitbucket/* instead of refs/remotes/origin/*. — kan
– kan, Commented Sep 7, 2012 at 15:35
Thanks, duly noted about the naming consistency. It probably make more sense to change bitbucket to origin though! Convention and all that :) — feargal
– feargal, Commented Sep 7, 2012 at 18:36
Maybe try git remote set-branches origin '*' or git remote set-branches origin --add new_branch_b. — AbbasEbadian
– AbbasEbadian, Commented Jan 16 at 7:56

B B · Accepted Answer · 2012-09-07 14:40:14Z

320

Update your remote if you still haven't done so:

$ git remote update $ git branch -r

answered Sep 7, 2012 at 14:40

B B

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5 Comments

Stefano Buora Over a year ago

I'm using the GitHub client on Win and sometimes it doesn't update the remote branches. The first line "git remote update" works like a charm. Easy & clean

dKab Over a year ago

It didn't help.

Rock Lee Over a year ago

I think I had aleady successfully fetched the branch but just needed to see it listed with git branch -r. On git-scm.com/docs/git-branch it says "Option -r causes the remote-tracking branches to be listed, and option -a shows both local and remote branches". git remote update fetches all branches of all remotes listed in git remote -v.

Dfranc3373 Over a year ago

After running this I was able to run git checkout origin/master and then branched off of that detached head to my master branch git branch master; git checkout master

Kirk Kuykendall Over a year ago

Works for me. Sure seems like Visual Studio should have this as a right click option on the remotes/origin folder in the Branches UI.

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 11:16:51Z

168

The remote section also specifies fetch rules. You could add something like this into it to fetch all branches from the remote:

fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

(Or replace origin with bitbucket.)

Please read about it here: 10.5 Git Internals - The Refspec

edited Dec 6, 2019 at 11:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Sep 7, 2012 at 15:17

kan

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9 Comments

PålOliver Over a year ago

This fixed my ongoing branching issue in Git that I had for weeks. Suddenly all the git remote update stuff actually started working. Thanks!

Sebastian Blask Over a year ago

For some reason, it looked like: fetch = +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master for me. Replacing master with * fixed my problem.

Mateus Gondim Over a year ago

The file you need to edit is .git/config

EsbenG Over a year ago

This is very usefull if you have converted a shallow clone to an unshallow.

dotnetCarpenter Over a year ago

@kan Do you know why this sometimes happens? It just happen to me when git clone a project. I don't recall having done anything special with my local git.

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Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 11:20:44Z

123

If you clone with the --depth parameter, it sets .git/config not to fetch all branches, but only master.

You can simply omit the parameter or update the configuration file from

fetch = +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master

to

fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

edited Dec 6, 2019 at 11:20

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 26, 2017 at 9:08

DonPaulie

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3 Comments

David Over a year ago

you can edit the configuration with git config -e

Tinsae Over a year ago

This is critical if you have cloned with --depth= specified, thanks

Nik Sep 26 at 16:43

This happened to me after cloning with --depth=1, thank you!

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 11:19:51Z

38

I had the same issue. It seems the easiest solution is to just remove the remote, readd it, and fetch.

edited Dec 6, 2019 at 11:19

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 15, 2014 at 7:43

jessicah

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5 Comments

Siddhartha Over a year ago

git remote -v will show you your remotes so you can get hold of the url, git remote rm origin will remove it, git remote add origin <url> will re-add it.

Zamrony P. Juhara Over a year ago

This worked for me. I had a git submodule which somehow, did not fetch any remote branch than master. Removing and adding it again solved it.

dafnahaktana Over a year ago

worked for me, but now I get a warning warning: ignoring broken ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD

Jasha Over a year ago

It's frustrating how often with git config issues the best solution is to delete something and start over.

saulius2 Over a year ago

I also needed this command: git branch --set-upstream-to=origin/main main. Otherwise I was getting "There is no tracking information for the current branch. Please specify which branch you want to merge with."

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-06 11:21:52Z

Unfortunately, git branch -a and git branch -r do not show you all remote branches, if you haven't executed a "git fetch".

git remote show origin works consistently all the time. Also git show-ref shows all references in the Git repository. However, it works just like the git branch command.

anthony422 · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-13 09:02:25Z

you could also just write git checkout BRANCH_NAME and it will create one locally and link it to the one on the origin

you should get this message prompted: Branch 'BRANCH_NAME' set up to track remote branch 'BRANCH_NAME' from 'origin'.

Mark Lakata · Accepted Answer · 2024-01-16 22:44:54Z

If you are using a git repo that was checked-out using Bamboo, the URL that Bamboo uses is not the same as the original repo. After doing every single suggestion in this question, I did git config -e and found the URL for [remote "origin"] and fixed the url setting so that it matched the URL I have been using in my personal workspace.

Before:

url = file:///home/agent/bamboo-agent-home/xml-data/build-dir/_git-repositories-cache/71efa04b5e7c457ab86f97a26aa286d9258556fb

After:

url = http://bitbucket.mycompany.com:7990/scm/seq/myrepo.git

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