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I can't pop my stash because I merged a branch which apparently conflicts with my stash and now my stash is seemingly unable to be popped.

app.coffee: needs merge unable to refresh index

Anyone know how to resolve this?

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  • 15
    It is interesting that accepted answer is complex while actual solution is quite easy: you do not have to even commit the conflicted file, but add it. Commented Mar 21, 2015 at 20:31
  • 7
    Add your answer as answer not in the question. Commented May 25, 2018 at 11:31
  • @Javi You are right and this is interesting. Commented Dec 6, 2021 at 9:04
  • @Javi you are incredible Commented Jan 31 at 20:02

10 Answers 10

Reset to default
124

First, check git status.
As the OP mentions,

The actual issue was an unresolved merge conflict from the merge, NOT that the stash would cause a merge conflict.

That is where git status would mention that file as being "both modified"

Resolution: Commit the conflicted file.

Solution: in this case, simply add and commit your local file.

Actually, just git add -- yourFile, or (if you don't want those changes) git reset -- yourFile (to unstage it) is enough to get past the error message.

If you do not want to commit, just git add yourFile is enough.
You can then git stash the rest if you want.

You can find a similar situation 4 days ago at the time of writing this answer (March 13th, 2012) with this post: "‘Pull is not possible because you have unmerged files’":

julita@yulys:~/GNOME/baobab/help/C$ git stash pop help/C/scan-remote.page: needs merge unable to refresh index

What you did was to fix the merge conflict (editing the right file, and committing it):
See "How do I fix merge conflicts in Git?"

What the blog post's author did was:

julita@yulys:~/GNOME/baobab/help/C$ git reset --hard origin/mallard-documentation HEAD is now at ff2e1e2 Add more steps for optional information for scanning.

I.e. aborting the current merge completely, allowing the git stash pop to be applied.
See "Aborting a merge in Git".

Those are your two options.

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7 Comments

Sometimes it also happens we are in another branch. For example, i have branch A and made some changes and switched to branch B and made changes and commit them. Now I want to go branch A but forgot to checkout on A and trying to apply the stash. In this case, also it gives same issue. I faced this issue in the above case.
I committed everything but 'git bash pop' brings back those conflicts. I don't see why I should have to commit anyway when I don't want to make changes to current bach. I just want to go back to stashed branch.
@PhilipRego git bash pop? or git stash pop? Try do checkout the stash instead of using git stash: stackoverflow.com/a/16625128/6309
Sorry meant 'git stash pop'. I dropped the stash already, but I'll try that next time I have this issue. Thank you
@JoelMellon Good point. 11 years later, I have edited my answer to make clear git add alone can be enough.
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53

Here's how I solved the issue:

  • git status (see a mix of files from a previous stash, pull, stash pop, and continued work.)
  • git stash (see the needs merge issue)
  • git add . (add the files so my work locally resolves my own merged)
  • git stash (no error)
  • git pull (no error)
  • git stash pop (no error and continue working)
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1 Comment

Excellent, git add . without committing fixes the issue for me.
16

Its much simpler than the accepted answer. You need to:

  1. Check git status and unmerged paths under it. Fix the conflicts. You can skip this step if you'd rather do it later.

  2. Add all these files under unmerged paths to index using git add <filename>.

  3. Now do git stash pop. If you get any conflicts these will again need to be resolved.

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1 Comment

This leads to the same conflict again and again.
14

I was having this issue, then resolving the conflict and commiting, and doing git stash pop again was restoring the same stash again (causing the same conflict :-( ).

What I had to do (WARNING: back up your stash first) is git stash drop to get rid of it.

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2 Comments

That just got rid of my stash. I wanted to go back to it.
This is the answer that I needed, but to other people who see this, you will lose your stashed changes. This is helpful if you are having issues with the first stash, but really want to get rid of the first stash to apply your deeper second level stashed changes.
8

Well, initially, we should know the root of the error, then the solution will become easy. The reason has already been pointed out by the accepted answer, but it's somehow incomplete (and also the solution).

The problem is, one or more files had conflicts previously, and Git still sees them as unresolved. Although you may already edited those files and resolved the conflicts, but Git is not aware of.

In this case, you should inform Git: "Hey, there are no conflicts from the previous merge!". Note that, the merge is not necessarily caused by a git merge, but also by a git stash pop, for example.

Generally, git status can tell you what Git knows now. If there are some unresolved merge conflicts to Git, it is shown in a separated Unmerged paths section, with the files marked as both modified (always?). If you have noticed, this section is between two staged and unstaged sections. This means, unmerged paths are those you should either move into staged or unstaged areas, as Git can work only with these two.

Even in recent versions of Git, when you do a git status, it tells you the how (woah! You should ask yourself how you haven't seen this yet):

$ git status ... Unmerged paths: (use "git restore --staged <file>..." to unstage) (use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution) both modified: path/to/file.txt ...

So, to stage it (and maybe commit it):

git add path/to/file.txt

And to make it unstaged (e.g. you don't want to commit it now):

git restore --staged path/to/file.txt

Note: Forgetting to write --staged option could spawn a super-hungry dragon to eat your past two days, in the case of not using a good text-editor or IDE.

Note: While git restore command is experimental yet, it should be stable enough to be used (thanks to a comment by @VonC, refer to it for more details on that).

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5

If anyone is having this issue outside of a merge/conflict/action, then it could be the git lock file for your project causing the issue.

git reset fatal: Unable to create '/PATH_TO_PROJECT/.git/index.lock': File exists. rm -f /PATH_TO_PROJECT/.git/index.lock git reset git stash pop
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1 Comment

Kind of afraid of the reset command. Could you explain why this will work?
2

You need to add app.coffee to staging.

Do git add app.coffee and then you will be able to apply your stash (after that commit and push).

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2

I was facing the same issue because i have done some changes in my develop branch and then want to go to the profile branch. so i have stash the changes by

git stash

then in profile branch i have also done some changes and then want to come back again to the develop so i have to stash the changes again by

 git stash

but when i come to develop branch and tried to git the stash changes by

git stash apply

so i was getting error need merge

to solve this issue first i have to check the stash list by

git stash list

so it shows the list of stashes in my case there were 2 stashes the name of the stashes are displaying like this stash@{0},stash@{1}

I have need changes from stash@{1} so when i try to get it by this command

git stash apply stash@{1}

so was getting error needs merge

so now to solve this issue check the status of your files

git status

so it was giving error that "both modified" so to solve this run

git add .

it will add the missing modified files now again check the status

git status

so now there is no error now can apply stash

git stash apply stash@{1}

you can do this process for any number of stash files.

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1

I have found that the best solution is to branch off your stash and do a resolution afterwards.

git stash branch <branch-name>

if you drop of clear your stash, you may lose your changes and you will have to recur to the reflog.

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Comments

1

The stash has already been applied to other files.

It is only app.coffee that you have to merge manually. Afterwards just run

git reset

to unstage the changes and keep on hacking.

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