How to resolve stderr: fatal: Not a valid object name HEAD in jenkins?

Question

I am trying to get the latest code from git through Jenkins. Everytime I do so I get the following error. I have followed in through a few links on stackoverflow foe this but none of them seem to resolve the issue.

1. Tried deleting the entire workspace and then run again. It throws the same error.
2. Included git reset --hard in the Execute shell build option

Here is the error.

Checking out Revision bc304892eadfaaf7338fa6e5f370137555d7cfd9 (refs/remotes/origin/master)
 > C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe config core.sparsecheckout # timeout=10
 > C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe config core.sparsecheckout true # timeout=10
 > C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe read-tree -mu HEAD # timeout=10
Command "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe read-tree -mu HEAD" returned status code 128:
stdout: 
stderr: fatal: Not a valid object name HEAD
 > C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe checkout -f bc304892eadfaaf7338fa6e5f370137555d7cfd9
FATAL: Could not checkout bc304892eadfaaf7338fa6e5f370137555d7cfd9
hudson.plugins.git.GitException: Could not checkout bc304892eadfaaf7338fa6e5f370137555d7cfd9
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl$8.execute(CliGitAPIImpl.java:1907)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.RemoteGitImpl$CommandInvocationHandler$1.call(RemoteGitImpl.java:152)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.RemoteGitImpl$CommandInvocationHandler$1.call(RemoteGitImpl.java:145)
    at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:120)
    at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48)
    at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:326)
    at hudson.remoting.InterceptingExecutorService$1.call(InterceptingExecutorService.java:68)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
    at hudson.remoting.Engine$1$1.run(Engine.java:62)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
    at ......remote call to odesk.delta.04(Native Method)
    at hudson.remoting.Channel.attachCallSiteStackTrace(Channel.java:1416)
    at hudson.remoting.UserResponse.retrieve(UserRequest.java:220)
    at hudson.remoting.Channel.call(Channel.java:781)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.RemoteGitImpl$CommandInvocationHandler.execute(RemoteGitImpl.java:145)
    at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor434.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.RemoteGitImpl$CommandInvocationHandler.invoke(RemoteGitImpl.java:131)
    at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy51.execute(Unknown Source)
    at hudson.plugins.git.GitSCM.checkout(GitSCM.java:1060)
    at hudson.scm.SCM.checkout(SCM.java:485)
    at hudson.model.AbstractProject.checkout(AbstractProject.java:1276)
    at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.defaultCheckout(AbstractBuild.java:607)
    at jenkins.scm.SCMCheckoutStrategy.checkout(SCMCheckoutStrategy.java:86)
    at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.run(AbstractBuild.java:529)
    at hudson.model.Run.execute(Run.java:1738)
    at hudson.model.FreeStyleBuild.run(FreeStyleBuild.java:43)
    at hudson.model.ResourceController.execute(ResourceController.java:98)
    at hudson.model.Executor.run(Executor.java:410)
Caused by: hudson.plugins.git.GitException: Command "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe checkout -f bc304892eadfaaf7338fa6e5f370137555d7cfd9" returned status code 128:
stdout: 
stderr: error: Sparse checkout leaves no entry on working directory
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl.launchCommandIn(CliGitAPIImpl.java:1640)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl.access$500(CliGitAPIImpl.java:62)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.CliGitAPIImpl$8.execute(CliGitAPIImpl.java:1899)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.RemoteGitImpl$CommandInvocationHandler$1.call(RemoteGitImpl.java:152)
    at org.jenkinsci.plugins.gitclient.RemoteGitImpl$CommandInvocationHandler$1.call(RemoteGitImpl.java:145)
    at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:120)
    at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48)
    at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:326)
    at hudson.remoting.InterceptingExecutorService$1.call(InterceptingExecutorService.java:68)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
    at hudson.remoting.Engine$1$1.run(Engine.java:62)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Finished: FAILURE

Solution

I believe you have two issues here.

The first one:

Command "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe read-tree -mu HEAD" returned 
status code 128:
stdout: 
stderr: fatal: Not a valid object name HEAD

is actually relatively harmless. We encountered the same one. This is caused by the fact that the read-tree call is done before the checkout. The ref HEAD gets set after the checkout. This error in our case did not cause any further problems. We managed to get rid of this one by not performing a full wipe before a checkout, but only a clean.

The real problem is the second error:

Caused by: hudson.plugins.git.GitException: Command "C:\Program Files\Git\bin\git.exe checkout -f bc304892eadfaaf7338fa6e5f370137555d7cfd9"     returned status code 128:
stdout: 
stderr: error: Sparse checkout leaves no entry on working directory

We also encountered this problem. In our case this was caused by incorrect paths in the sparse checkout. Double check if the paths you entered there are correct.