While the impact of this bug is minimal, and git itself is not affected, it can affect external tools that want to read the .git/config file, expecting unique section names. To reproduce: Given the following example .git/config file (I am leaving out the [core] section for brevity): [remote "origin"] url = git@xxxxxxxxxx:Fryguy/example.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* [branch "master"] remote = origin merge = refs/heads/master Running `git remote rm origin` will result in the following contents: [branch "master"] Running `git remote add origin git@xxxxxxxxxx:Fryguy/example.git` will result in the following contents: [branch "master"] [remote "origin"] url = git@xxxxxxxxxx:Fryguy/example.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* And finally, running `git fetch origin; git branch -u origin/master` will result in the following contents: [branch "master"] [remote "origin"] url = git@xxxxxxxxxx:Fryguy/example.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* [branch "master"] remote = origin merge = refs/heads/master at which point you can see the duplicate sections (even though one is empty). Also note that if you do the steps again, you will be left with 3 sections, 2 of which are empty. This process can be repeated over and over. Thanks, Jason