Updating the git tree failed: Could not determine commit for "heads/v1.x"

[inmanturbo]

if you are comparing say main to v1.x and you then switch to v1.x and make a change then commit it, then switch back to main, your diff will still be compared to the old ref on v1.x.

Attempting to refresh with cause an error saying no such file or directory .git/packed-refs.

After running git pack-refs you will get the following error and will not be able to refresh or change base.

Updating the git tree failed: Could not determine commit for "heads/v1.x"

Steps:

echo "# first entry" > README.md  
git init
git add README.md
git branch -m main
git commit -m "first commit"

git tag v1.x 

git branch v1.x v1.x

echo "# second entry" >> README.md
git add README.md
git commit -m "second commit"

Open Git tree Compare select v1.x as base. See diff showing second commit.

Back in terminal, run

git switch v1.x

echo "# v1 patch" >> README.md  
git add README.md            
git commit -m "first patch"

switch back to main

git switch main

Your diff will not show the "v1 patch"
Attempt to refresh and see error.

[letmaik]

Thanks for the report! I'll try to reproduce it, but in the meantime, can you let me know which git version you're using?

[inmanturbo]

@letmaik I'm on git version 2.34.1. Looks like the latest is 2.39.2. I can try updating.

[inmanturbo]

Still having the issue on 2.39.2. Try as I might I cannot get a diff tree to show the difference between v1.x and main once v1.x gets an update that hasn't gone into main. I had to switch back and forth a couple times and try a few more refreshes in order to hit the error, but at no point am I able to see the diff between the v1 patch and main.

[inmanturbo]

I should point out that what this means is if you are working on a PR, even if you pull the latest changes for the release you need to merge into, you will not see them in Git Tree Compare, and will still need to rely on lower level tools to see the latest version.

[letmaik]

Note that the extension dumps all the git commands in the Output view (where all the other logs are). It might be worth looking at that and re-running those manually to understand what's going on.

[inmanturbo]

This is the output:

Using git from git
> git rev-parse --git-dir
> git rev-parse --git-dir
> git rev-parse --git-common-dir
Using repository: /tree-compare-demo
Updating refs
> git symbolic-ref --short HEAD
Changing the repository failed: Could not determine commit for "heads/v1.x"
Updating refs
> git symbolic-ref --short HEAD
Updating the git tree failed: Could not determine commit for "heads/v1.x"
Updating refs
> git symbolic-ref --short HEAD
Updating the git tree failed: Could not determine commit for "heads/v1.x"