How to resolve some git errors

This post will help the readers a lot because the errors mentioned can occur very frequently.

Remote origin already exists

This error occurs when you already have a remote repository specified and the remote origin removed and added. Example:

$ git remote rm origin
$ git remote add origin https://gitserver.com/scm/myproject.git

Git push fails with rejected error

This error occurs because you didn't execute git pull before git push. Example:

$ git pull
$ git push

Git push fails caused by "fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly"

This one is common and you should check whether your remote URL is correct and Git has access to the remote repository. I suggest add (if not already setted) the origin; else set the correct origin.

Restoring a changed file to its last committed state

Run git checkout followed by the filename and you will lose your changes. However, this will be restored as a clean copy of the file. Example:

$ git checkout fileName

Unstaging a file

Did you run git add too soon? Run git reset HEAD followed by the filename to unstage it:

$ git reset HEAD fileName

How to fix the most recent commit message

The –amend option will edit a commit message:

$ git commit --amend

The editor will open to edit the last message.

Reset the most recent commit

There are two ways to do this: with and without your changes.
1) Without losing changes:

$ git reset HEAD~1

2) By losing changes:

$ git reset --hard HEAD~1

I found a bug after releasing the product but it was in the commit that I did a long time ago

In this case, you should not use git reset because it rewrites the history and the product is already released. Therefore, you should make a commit that reverts the buggy commit and pushes it to
share with your colleagues:

$ git revert 17cc9433abcf23c42aef6b9aad24b5fcfc353f7c

There are many garbage files in the working directory. How to delete them?

In this situation, the files are not maintained by Git, so you have to use git clean:
1) To check the files that will be removed

$ git clean -n

2) Now remove them:

$ git clean -f

I think I made a mistake while resolving conflicted files. How do I restore it to the state just after git merge?

To do this, you can use git checkout:

$ git checkout --merge fileName

Gitindex file is corrupt

No need to worry. This one is rare but can be annoying! Git will display the error as "bad index file sha1 signature: fatal: index file corrupt". You just have to remove the backup index file; remove it, and then reset the repository:

$ mv .git/index .git/indexOLD

$ git reset

Git refuses to start a merge/pull command.

The typical error messages look like this:

• Error: The myfile.txt entry is not up to date; it cannot be merged.
• Error: The myfile.txt entry will be overwritten by the merge command.

To resolve this, perform the following steps:
1. Stash the changes or throw them out:

$ git stash save "a message"
$ git checkout myfile.txt

2. Check that the changes are staged:

$ git status

3. Bring the changes from the remote repository:

$ git pull

4. Repopulate if you made a stash:

$ git stash pop