git rebase --continue won't work

Question

I did git rebase master, fixed the conflicts reported in a file, and then git add the file to resolve the conflict. Then I did git rebase --continue, and got this:

Applying: Fixed unit test

No changes - did you forget to use 'git add'? If there is nothing left to stage, chances are that something else already introduced the same changes; you might want to skip this patch.

When you have resolved this problem, run "git rebase --continue". If you prefer to skip this patch, run "git rebase --skip" instead. To check out the original branch and stop rebasing, run "git rebase --abort".

Any idea what I am missing here? Should I do git rebase --skip?

Solution 1

If you are in Mac OS X, then first of all you should disable revisiond, as it can mess with files in your work tree in the middle of rebase, causing unpredictable and broken behavior:

git config --global core.trustctime false

The issue is explained in this article, and big thanks to @nickfalk who pointed it out.

As for your rebase, this kind of situation is not unusual in practice. Let's try to think through the steps of what's happening:

• When you rebase the current branch on top of another branch, git moves the HEAD to the other branch, and starts applying the unique commits you have in your current branch.

• While replaying one of those commits, you reached a conflict. You resolved it, but as a result there are no changes to commit, nothing to replay in this commit.

Practically, this means that you rejected the changes in the current commit being replayed. So, if you don't need anything from this commit, it's normal to skip it. So git rebase --skip makes sense here.

Solution 2

I had a similar problem in my project and solved by putting the --preserve-merges option to the rebase command. In my project, this problem was caused by a merge commit, which is an "empty commit". Using git rebase --preserve-merges it takes the merge commit and continues the merge without breaking the commit tree.

Solution 3

Breath, you're not going crazy! ;-= This is a known bug where OSX (if that is indeed what you're using) is messing with git, it is detailed here (not by me).

Short story (i.e. the fix) is:

git config --global core.trustctime false

Solution 4

I tried all the methods but nothing worked for me. If you are not in the middle of a rebase but git keeps complaining, then try the following. This worked for me for OSX.

rm -fr ".git/rebase-apply"

Solution 5

git add . will unblock you from this state, but if you resolved all conflicts by accepting the incoming changes, there is no diff to add so git thinks the conflict wasn't resolved as far as the rebase is concerned.

I took a low brow approach that worked without relying on side effects of using mysterious git config changes etc:

• Added harmless content (eg // on one line) to each file in conflict (to give git something to add)
• git add .
• git rebase --continue
• remove harmless comment

All sorted 🙂

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Comments

[Josh Kovach]

I used to have this problem all the time with huge rebases. Thanks for pointing this out!

[Boon]

Yes OSX. This fix doesn't do it :(

[Boon]

Checked status, it's not.

[T. Benjamin Larsen]

It is likely that this will not help with your current rebase. It is already basing itself on the existing information in the file-system. Not sure, but it might just work if you restart the rebase...

[Boon]

@nickfalk, thanks for answering this. I selected another answer because that's what solves it for me but your answer can very well help someone else.

[T. Benjamin Larsen]

No worries Boon, hope you are 100% sure that deciding to disregard any changes your mentioned commit had was what you wanted...

[T. Benjamin Larsen]

This would make indeed make sense if the commit in question was disregarded and none of its changes was accepted as a part of solving the conflict. Taking the below mentioned well-known bug into consideration however, it could also easily mean that you lose the intended changes in said commit...

[janos]

You're right, I added this info now, and thanks for pointing it out!

[CommaToast]

This was driving me crazy. Thank you very much. I would also like to note that you're awesome.

[Alejandro de Haro]

Man, this saved my day. I was using Ubuntu, so any other answer didn't apply to me but yours. Adding the --preserve-merges option ended up working flawlessly as git showed me further problems that I had with my tree but that could be fixed up manually.

[Adas Lesniak]

In case of getting changes from single commit (or even few) - it's much better to put them on separate temporary local branch, then checkout your working branch, reset it to before changes, rebase if needed, then cherry pick. That's what cherry pick is for - to not copy things manually.

[Damian Giebas]

God bless you for this post. It resolved my problem!

[Gi0rgi0s]

@AdasLesniak that's a really good point! I wish I had thought of that while I was resolving my issues last year

[Szczepan Hołyszewski]

How can changes be "already rebased" if I am still in the process of rebasing and I haven't finished?

[nbeuchat]

That made the trick for me on Ubuntu