I ran into a rather confusing case of fetching into a bare repository with reflogs turned on: # make a repo with a two-component branch name git init -q && git commit -q --allow-empty -m one && git branch foo/bar && # now fetch it all into a bare repo with reflogs git init -q --bare parent.git && cd parent.git && git config core.logallrefupdates true && git fetch --prune .. +refs/*:refs/* && # now replace the branch with one that has a d/f conflict cd .. && git branch -d foo/bar && git branch foo && # and fetch again cd parent.git && git fetch --prune .. +refs/*:refs/* The final fetch fails and produces this output: From .. x [deleted] (none) -> foo/bar error: Unable to append to ./logs/refs/heads/foo: Is a directory ! [new branch] foo -> foo (unable to update local ref) This turns out to be caused by two subtle bugs: one that makes "git fetch" use reflogs inconsistently, and the other that causes some ref updates to fail when reflogs are turned on and off. Details are in the fixes themselves. [1/2]: fetch: load all default config at startup [2/2]: ignore stale directories when checking reflog existence -Peff -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html