Gitlab error src refspec master does not match any

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This post talks about how to fix a git error.

error: src refspec master does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to ‘url.git’.

Possible causes for this error for the below use cases

• Create and commit changes to the remote repository
• Push the existing repository from the command line

Here are the steps and commands for creating and cloning and committing the repository

• git init
• git add README.md
• git commit -m “Initial Changes”.
• git remote add origin https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git
• git push -u origin master

error: src refspec master does not match any error: failed to push some refs to ‘url.git’

There are two use cases success and error flow.

Let’s see how we can reproduce these error use cases.

These are the not correct way of adding commits and pushing changes but given an example use case how we can reproduce this error?

• I have a local project created angular-crud-mock-api in the b:\githubwork directory.

• Create an empty repository in github.com my repository url.

https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git

• Now want to commit angular-curd-mock-api code changes into the Repository url
  existing local application created `angular-crud-mock-api which is not synced with the GitHub repository.
• Let’s see how to add these changes to the remote repository

:githubworkangular-crud-mock-api>git remote add origin https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git

• Issue git push command and throws an error

B:githubworkangular-crud-mock-api>git push -u origin master
error: src refspec master does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git'

That means, we have to add the first files or directory before pushing changes.

• Add the files and directories using the below command git add .

B:githubworkangular-crud-mock-api>git add .
warning: LF will be replaced by CRLF in angular-crud-mock-api/.browserslistrc.
The file will have its original line endings in your working directory.

It adds the changes to the local repository in git.

Now, Let’s try to push changes to the remote repository using the git push command.

• Next, push changes using the git push command.

B:githubworkangular-crud-mock-api>git push -u origin master
error: src refspec master does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git'

This error throws an error and you need to use the commit command before pushing the Command.

• commit changes
  Here are the committed changes to the local repository.

B:githubworkangular-crud-mock-api>git commit -m "Initial changes"
[master (root-commit) 96c6c0c] Initial changes
 29 files changed, 30724 insertions(+)

How to add add,commit push Success Flow in Github

Let’s see how we can reproduce these success use cases.

Here is a sequence of commands you need to run to avoid the error.

git remote add origin https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git
git add .
git commit -m "Initial changes".
git push -u origin master

Here is the output of push changes

B:githubworkangular-crud-mock-api>git push -u origin master
Enumerating objects: 38, done.
Counting objects: 100% (38/38), done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (34/34), done.
Writing objects: 100% (38/38), 260.09 KiB | 5.20 MiB/s, done.
Total 38 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.
To https://github.com/intkiran/angular-mock-api-json.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.

fix git error:src refspec origin does not match any

You have to carefully check the below things to avoid this error, if you create new repo or push an existing repository,

• You forgot to add the files before pushing changes to the master or branch

• Missing or skipping the git add .or git commit command throws an error

Here are steps for adding the files or directories

• git commit message enclosed in double quotes instead of single quotes

Valid

git commit -m "initial changes"

Invalid

git commit -m 'initial commit'

• Please check the branch name with the push command

Usually, we will push changes using the below command.

git push -U origin `branchame`

push command push changes from the local repo to the remote repository branchname
Please make sure that branchname exists.

‘master ‘ is the default branch.

Here is a correct command

git push -U origin master

Possible reasons

• Branch name not found
• Branch name spelling mistake or case insensitive

How to create a new repo to avoid this error in Git

here is a list of commands to avoid this error

git init
git add .
git commit -m 'message'
git push -u origin master

Conclusion

In this tutorial, Learn how to fix the git error:src refspec origin does not match any while working with git repositories.

You need to add a file to a commit before you can push your changes to a remote Git repository. If you create a new repository and forget to add a file to a commit, you may encounter the “src refspec master does not match any” error.

In this guide, we discuss what this error means and why it is raised. We walk through an example of this error so you can figure out how to fix it on your computer.

src refspec master does not match any

When you first create a Git repository, the repository has no commit history. If you want to push a change into a repository, you must first make a commit.

The workflow for pushing a change to a repository looks like this:

1. Change a file
2. Add the file to the staging area
3. Create a commit

Once you have created a commit, you can push it to a remote server. If you forget the third step and try to push your code to a remote server, Git will raise an error. This is because Git will be unsure about what changes need to be made to the remote repository.

An Example Scenario

We’re going to create a Git repository for a new HTML project. To start, let’s create the directory structure for our project:

mkdir html-project
cd html-project

We have created a directory called html-project and then we have moved into that directory.

Now that we have our folder ready, we can initialize a Git repository:

This command creates a hidden folder called .git/ which contains the configuration for our repository. Next, we create our first project file. We’re going to call this file index.html and add the following contents:

This file only contains one tag because we are still setting up our project. Now that we have a file in our repository, we’re going to link it up to a remote repository.

Our remote repository is hosted on GitHub. This will let us keep track of our project using the GitHub platform. To connect our local repository to the GitHub repository, we must add a remote reference to the GitHub repository:

git remote add origin https://github.com/career-karma-tutorials/html-project

After running this command, Git will know where our commits should go when we push them to our remote repository. Now we can add our changed file to our project:

Our index.html file is now in the staging area. To display this file on our remote repository, we can push it to the origin repository we just defined:

git push -u origin master

Let’s see what happens when we run this command:

error: src refspec master does not match any.

An error is returned.

The Solution

The git add command does not create a commit. The git add command moves files to the staging area. This is a triage space where files go before they are added to a commit. You can remove and add files from the staging area whenever you want.

This error is common if you try to push changes to a Git ref before you have created your first commit to your local repo or remote repo.

We need to create an initial commit before we push our code to our remote repository:

git commit -m "feat: Create index.html"

This will create a record of the repository at the current point in time, reflecting all the changes we added to the staging area. Now, let’s try to push our code.

Our code is successfully pushed to our remote repository.

Conclusion

The “src refspec master does not match any” error occurs if you have forgotten to add the files you have changed to a commit and try to push those changes to a remote repository before you make the first commit in your repository.

To solve this error, create a commit using the git commit command and then try to push your changes to the remote repository. Now you have the knowledge you need to fix this error like a professional coder!

In this article, we will see how to solve "error: src refspec master does not match any" if you are also getting this error during git push operation. Last night when I was trying to push my release branch changes to the master, I noticed that it was failing with the "error: src refspec master does not match any".  While I  wasn’t expecting this error to come but this is something which can occur at any time if you miss something. So at this time I decided to write an article about this so that it will help you guys also in case you are also getting this error.

But before proceeding towards the solution, let me tell you this error can be solved in multiple ways depending on your scenario and the branching strategy that you follow. Here I will explain you the best method which you can use even in a production or in a critical system with full confidence. This is fully tested and generally works fine in all Git based source control including Bitbucket.

Also Read: How to Create and Work on your Own Bitbucket Feature Branch

To explain the scenario in my system, I am currently having two local branches — develop and release/1.0.1 as you can see below. Here after adding all the changes to my release/1.0.1 branch, I am trying to push it to the remote master.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git branch
  develop 
* release/1.0.1

From the release/1.0.1 branch, I tried to push the changes using git push -u origin master command then suddenly I noticed that it is failing with below error.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git push -u origin master
error: src refspec master does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://app.cyberithub.com/bitbucket/scm/application/example-app.git'

While the above error could occur due to many reasons but for me it occurs because I was pushing the changes to master branch from a source branch which did not had any reference to the remote master branch. So to fix the above error, first I had to create and switch to new local master branch using git checkout -b master command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git checkout -b master
Switched to a new branch 'master'

You can verify the current branch by using git branch command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git branch
  develop
  release/1.0.1
* master

Here first I needed to pull all the changes from remote master branch using git pull origin master command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git pull origin master
warning: Pulling without specifying how to reconcile divergent branches is
discouraged. You can squelch this message by running one of the following
commands sometime before your next pull:

git config pull.rebase false # merge (the default strategy)
git config pull.rebase true # rebase
git config pull.ff only # fast-forward only

You can replace "git config" with "git config --global" to set a default
preference for all repositories. You can also pass --rebase, --no-rebase,
or --ff-only on the command line to override the configured default per
invocation.

From https://app.cyberithub.com/bitbucket/scm/application/example-app.git
* branch          master     -> FETCH_HEAD
Already up to date!
Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.

Once the branch is in sync with remote master, I pulled all the files from my release branch using git pull origin release/1.0.1 command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git pull origin release/1.0.1
warning: Pulling without specifying how to reconcile divergent branches is
discouraged. You can squelch this message by running one of the following
commands sometime before your next pull:

git config pull.rebase false # merge (the default strategy)
git config pull.rebase true # rebase
git config pull.ff only # fast-forward only

You can replace "git config" with "git config --global" to set a default
preference for all repositories. You can also pass --rebase, --no-rebase,
or --ff-only on the command line to override the configured default per
invocation.

From https://app.cyberithub.com/bitbucket/scm/application/example-app.git
* branch           release/1.0.1 -> FETCH_HEAD
Merge made by the 'recursive' strategy.
 config/test.yaml                     | 2 +-
 config/hello.yaml                    | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

After merging all the release changes to master, I again tried to push the changes to remote master branch by using git push -u origin master command as shown below.

cyberithub@ubuntu:~$ git push -u origin master
Enumerating objects: 16, done.
Counting objects: 100% (16/16), done.
Compressing objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (2/2), 565 bytes | 565.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 2 (delta 1), reused 0(delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Checking connectivity: 2, done.
remote:
remote: Create pull request for master:
remote:   https://app.cyberithub.com/bitbucket/scm/projects/EXAMPLE/repos/example-app/pull-requests?create&sourceBranch=refs/heads/master
remote: 
To https://app.cyberithub.com/bitbucket/scm/application/example-app.git
   768ca03..9acb8ca  master -> master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'origin'.

As you can see from the above output, this time git push to remote master branch worked successfully. So this is how I solved my error. But this is not always the case with everyone. You might be getting "error: src refspec master does not match any" due to some other reasons like you might not have done the initial commit inside the repository and without that you are trying to push the changes. In that case also you will get the same error. So to fix this kind of error you need to first do the initial commit in your local repo and then only push the changes using git push -u origin master command as shown below.

touch somefile
git add somefile
git commit -m "Initial Commit"
git push -u origin master

Hopefully the above solution should be enough to solve your "error: src refspec master does not match any" too. Please let me know your feedback on the comment box.