Why does git status show branch is up-to-date when changes exist upstream?

Question

Changes exist upstream in a tracked branch, but when I type git status it indicates that my local branch is up-to-date. Is this new behavior, did I change a config setting, or is something wrong?

Thanks for the help.

[email protected]:/my/repo# git status
On branch master
Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/master'.
nothing to commit, working directory clean
[email protected]:/my/repo# git pull
remote: Counting objects: 11, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (11/11), done.
remote: Total 11 (delta 6), reused 0 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (11/11), done.
From bitbucket.org:my/repo
   1234567..abcdefg  master     -> origin/master
Updating 1234567..abcdefg
Fast-forward
 file1        |  1 -
 file2        | 43 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 file3        | 21 ++++++++++++---------
 file4        | 21 ++++++++++++---------
 4 files changed, 67 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 file5

Solution 1

What the status is telling you is that you're behind the ref called origin/master which is a local ref in your local repo. In this case that ref happens to track a branch in some remote, called origin, but the status is not telling you anything about the branch on the remote. It's telling you about the ref, which is just a commit ID stored on your local filesystem (in this case, it's typically in a file called .git/refs/remotes/origin/master in your local repo).

git pull does two operations; first it does a git fetch to get up to date with the commits in the remote repo (which updates the origin/master ref in your local repo), then it does a git merge to merge those commits into the current branch.

Until you do the fetch step (either on its own or via git pull) your local repo has no way to know that there are additional commits upstream, and git status only looks at your local origin/master ref.

When git status says up-to-date, it means "up-to-date with the branch that the current branch tracks", which in this case means "up-to-date with the local ref called origin/master". That only equates to "up-to-date with the upstream status that was retrieved last time we did a fetch" which is not the same as "up-to-date with the latest live status of the upstream".

Why does it work this way? Well the fetch step is a potentially slow and expensive network operation. The design of Git (and other distributed version control systems) is to avoid network operations when unnecessary, and is a completely different model to the typical client-server system many people are used to (although as pointed out in the comments below, Git's concept of a "remote tracking branch" that causes confusion here is not shared by all DVCSs). It's entirely possible to use Git offline, with no connection to a centralized server, and the output of git status reflects this.

Creating and switching branches (and checking their status) in Git is supposed to be lightweight, not something that performs a slow network operation to a centralized system. The assumption when designing Git, and the git status output, was that users understand this (too many Git features only make sense if you already know how Git works). With the adoption of Git by lots and lots of users who are not familiar with DVCS this assumption is not always valid.

Solution 2

This is because your local repo hasn't checked in with the upstream remotes. To have this work as you're expecting it to, use git fetch then run a git status again.

Solution 3

While these are all viable answers, I decided to give my way of checking if local repo is in line with the remote, whithout fetching or pulling. In order to see where my branches are I use simply:

git remote show origin

What it does is return all the current tracked branches and most importantly - the info whether they are up to date, ahead or behind the remote origin ones. After the above command, this is an example of what is returned:

  * remote origin
  Fetch URL: https://github.com/xxxx/xxxx.git
  Push  URL: https://github.com/xxxx/xxxx.git
  HEAD branch: master
  Remote branches:
    master      tracked
    no-payments tracked
  Local branches configured for 'git pull':
    master      merges with remote master
    no-payments merges with remote no-payments
  Local refs configured for 'git push':
    master      pushes to master      (local out of date)
    no-payments pushes to no-payments (local out of date)

Hope this helps someone.

Solution 4

I have faced a similar problem, I searched everywhere online for solutions and I tried to follow them. None worked for me. These were the steps I took to the problem.

Make new repo and push the existing code again to the new repo

git init doesn’t initialize if you already have a .git/ folder in your repository. So, for your case, do -

(1) rm -rf .git/

(2) git init

(3) git remote add origin https://repository.remote.url

(4) git commit -m “Commit message”

(5) git push -f origin master

Note that all git configs like remote repositories for this repository are cleared in step 1. So, you have to set up all remote repository URLs again.

Also, take care of the -f in step 5: The remote already has some code base with n commits, and you’re trying to make all those changes into a single commit. So, force-pushing the changes to remote is necessary.

Solution 5

"origin/master" refers to the reference poiting to the HEAD commit of branch "origin/master". A reference is a human-friendly alias name to a Git object, typically a commit object. "origin/master" reference only gets updated when you git push to your remote (http://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-Internals-Git-References#Remotes).

From within the root of your project, run:

cat .git/refs/remotes/origin/master

Compare the displayed commit ID with:

cat .git/refs/heads/master

They should be the same, and that's why Git says master is up-to-date with origin/master.

When you run

git fetch origin master

That retrieves new Git objects locally under .git/objects folder. And Git updates .git/FETCH_HEAD so that now, it points to the latest commit of the fetched branch.

So to see the differences between your current local branch, and the branch fetched from upstream, you can run

git diff HEAD FETCH_HEAD

View more solutions

Comments

[Andrew C]

You shouldn't cat items in the .git directory, it won't work with packed refs. Also the fetch behavior you described is for older versions of git.

[Jonathan Wakely]

doesn't the origin/master ref also get updated by a fetch, as well as a push?

[Marek Stanley]

Correct. I was using Git 1.8.3 so far. I can notice indeed with version 2.2.1, FETCH_HEAD gets updated during a fetch as well. Also when it comes to the message "Your branch is up-to-date with ..." or "Your branch is behind ... by X commits", it shows up only if your local branch tracks a given remote branch. For master to track origin/master, one must run git branch -u origin/master from branch master. If there is no tracking, you still need to run git diff.

[Jonathan Wakely]

Well then I suggest you correct the statement that '"origin/master" reference only gets updated when you git push to your remote'

[Droidum]

A late comment but I ran into the same situation. I understand why git has no way to know about changes before fetch. But then it should not say "up to date" which simply is not true. It better should say "no idea what might have happened remotely".

[Jonathan Wakely]

@Droidum but then it would always have to say that. Even if you do a fetch there could be an upstream commit that happened a microsecond later, so by the time you read the status it's out of date again. It's a feature of distributed version control systems like Git and takes a change in mindset to get used to, but is logical.

[Colin May]

Maybe it's strictly logical, but it's not at all human-reasonable. Why would you not design it to DO a fetch and THEN declare whether it is up to date? Or change the message to tell what it really did, e.g. "Your branch was up-to-date with 'origin/master' when last checked at {timestamp}"? Or even just say, "Do a fetch to find out whether your branch is up to date"?

[Jonathan Wakely]

Because fetching is an expensive network operation, switching branches is quick and lightweight. And because Git was designed to work offline, independent of a centralised upstream server. That's the distributed part of DVCS (that wikipedia page repeatedly stresses the "no network operations" point). It would certainly be possible to add that extra text (behind a config option so that redundant noise isn't shown if you how Git works) but asking for it here isn't going to change it, try emailing [email protected]

[Jonathan Wakely]

As I said in the previous comment, this is a feature of DVCS that takes getting used to, and "why doesn't it work like a centralized VCS I'm used to?" misses that point. I've updated the answer to stress the point that the "origin/master" it refers to is actually a local entity, on your local filesystem, which just happens to (sometimes) track some remote entity in a remote repo.

[whiterook6]

why bother showing the message "Your branch is up to date" at all? I don't see a point in knowing the status of origin/master, and if it's supposed to represent the actual master branch on the origin remote, then it clearly has no idea anyways.

[Jonathan Wakely]

@whiterook6 I don't see a point in knowing the status of origin/master [...] It doesn't tell you the status of that branch, it tells you the status of the current branch relative to the branch it tracks, which in the OP's case happens to be origin/master. For a branch that tracks some other branch that is obviously useful information when you ask for the status by running git status. and if it's supposed to represent the actual master branch on the origin remote, [...] It's not.

[velop]

Why is fetch an expensive operation if it is only a ref / commit ID which has to be fetched?

[Jonathan Wakely]

@velop, there could be thousands of commits to fetch, which could be a lot of data. Any network operation is expensive and orders of magnitude slower than just inspecting the local disk, which is what Git is designed to do. The whole point of a DVCS is to be independent of the network and independent of a central repository on a central server.

[pastullo]

ok, so is there a way to automatically force a fetch before running the git status command? There's quite a lot of us "user who don't understand DVCS" who would find this much more useful than a useless "all up-to-date" fake message!

[Jonathan Wakely]

@pastullo, so create an alias.

[elder elder]

For a thorough understanding of the concepts involved, I heartily recommend the answer debuting with "Here's the long answer." in this inquiry: stackoverflow.com/questions/16408300/… . E.g., for all those wondering what is the difference between a remote branch and a remote tracking branch (stored locally).

[matthewcummings516]

This is a perfect example of Git's horrific usability. I love its power and flexibility but simply changing the message to something like "Your branch is up-to-date with the local version of 'origin/master'." would be a huge improvement. The confusion here is that the local branch origin/master (pattern match with whatever remotes/branches you're using) which tracks a remote branch.

[DodgyCodeException]

This behaviour is not a common feature of distributed version control systems, but a specific feature of Git. For example, the second-most popular DVCS, Mercurial, has no concept of remote tracking branches. So even when a user experienced in other DVCSs sees the term "origin/master", they might be excused for thinking it might be the remote branch itself. As for myself, when I started learning Git after having used Mercurial for years, I found "origin/master" totally confusing until I read exactly how Git works.

[Hakaishin]

Has this always been the case? I swear on some systems I could do just git status without a fetch prior and get the commits ahead or behind. But maybe my memory serves me wrong...

[Jonathan Wakely]

@Hakaishin it's always been the case

[Gus]

This does not seem to be related to what OP is asking. They dont need to PUSH anything. There is info on origin that needs to be PULLED, but git status is not telling the user that they need to run a PULL.

[Ringo]

Can we just admit, whether the local branch is ACTUALLY up to date or not, the way the message is written is confusing and has caused grief for millions and millions of people over the years. Just adding the word 'local' would clarify things and make life better.