So I ran "git fetch --all" inside git.git that you are all familiar with. All fetches failed with a similar error as: Fetching kernelorg fatal: bad object HEAD error: https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/git/git did not send all necessary objects error: Could not fetch kernelorg Working with an older version of Git (2.13.0) gives me $ GIT_TRACE=/u/trace GIT_TRACE_PACKET=/u/out git fetch git://github.com/git/git >From git://github.com/git/git * branch HEAD -> FETCH_HEAD After fiddling around and some printf debugging, clean fsck(!) I could not make sense of it, so bisecting $ git bisect bad d0c39a49ccb5dfe7feba4325c3374d99ab123c59 is the first bad commit commit d0c39a49ccb5dfe7feba4325c3374d99ab123c59 Author: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@xxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed Aug 23 19:36:59 2017 +0700 revision.c: --all adds HEAD from all worktrees Unless single_worktree is set, --all now adds HEAD from all worktrees. Since reachable.c code does not use setup_revisions(), we need to call other_head_refs_submodule() explicitly there to have the same effect on "git prune", so that we won't accidentally delete objects needed by some other HEADs. A new FIXME is added because we would need something like int refs_other_head_refs(struct ref_store *, each_ref_fn, cb_data); in addition to other_head_refs() to handle it, which might require int get_submodule_worktrees(const char *submodule, int flags); It could be a separate topic to reduce the scope of this one. Signed-off-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@xxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> And here we go, I do use worktrees nowadays! $ git worktree list /usr/local/google/home/sbeller/OSS/git 117ddefdb4 (detached HEAD) /u/git d0c39a49cc (detached HEAD) /usr/local/google/home/sbeller/OSS/git_origin_master b14f27f917 (detached HEAD) /usr/local/google/home/sbeller/OSS/submodule_remote_dot 3d9025bd69 (detached HEAD) $ git show 3d9025bd69 fatal: ambiguous argument '3d9025bd69': unknown revision or path not in the working tree. ok, so I presume I just delete that working tree to "fix my copy of git" sbeller@sbeller:/u/git$ rm -rf /usr/local/google/home/sbeller/OSS/submodule_remote_dot sbeller@sbeller:/u/git$ git worktree prune sbeller@sbeller:/u/git$ git worktree list /usr/local/google/home/sbeller/OSS/git 117ddefdb4 (detached HEAD) /u/git d0c39a49cc (detached HEAD) /usr/local/google/home/sbeller/OSS/git_origin_master b14f27f917 (detached HEAD) $ git bisect reset Previous HEAD position was d0c39a49cc... revision.c: --all adds HEAD from all worktrees HEAD is now at 660fb3dfa8... Sync with maint $ make install $ git fetch --all # works fine! Any idea which direction we need to heading for a real fix?