error: failed to push some refs
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My co-worker received an error message when trying to do a push to our git repos. Usually a pull will fix the issue in my experience but this was different.
Error Message
git.exe push —progress "origin" branchName:branchName
error: Couldn't set refs/heads/branchName To X:xxx.git ! [remote rejected] branchName -> branchName (failed to write)
error: failed to push some refs to 'X:xxx.git'
Resolution
To resolve, we had to run some clean-up/performance commands on the remote repository.
Commands
git fsck —unreachable
git reflog expire —expire=0 —all
git repack -a -d -l
git prune
git gc —aggressive
Thank you!
This solved my problem. All of the other search results I found for 'Couldn't set refs/heads/whatever' errors were red herrings involving file and directory permissions.