Git checkout issue - deleting file without apparent reason

Git checkout issue - deleting file without apparent reason

[Paul van Wichen]

Hi,

We are having a strange issue that we haven't been able to pin down.
Scenario: master branch and feature branch both have a specific file.
1. Master checked out.
2. git status show no changes / clean staging area.
3. Checkout feature branch .
4. git status show no changes / clean staging area.
5. Checkout master again.
6. git status shows that a file has been deleted (i.e. the file was
removed from the file system and the staging area shows it as
deleted).

The file exists in both the feature branch and the master branch. As
best as we can tell, the file is identical on both commits.
The issue occurs on multiple platforms - tested on Windows and OS X.
It only occurs for 1 specific file.

Based on the activity of the file, nothing stands out as unusual.

How we go about troubleshooting this and determining the cause?

Thanks,
Paul van Wichen.

Re: Git checkout issue - deleting file without apparent reason

[Bryan Turner]

On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 6:33 PM, Paul van Wichen
<paul.vanwichen@cloudcheckr.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We are having a strange issue that we haven't been able to pin down.
> Scenario: master branch and feature branch both have a specific file.
> 1. Master checked out.
> 2. git status show no changes / clean staging area.
> 3. Checkout feature branch .
> 4. git status show no changes / clean staging area.
> 5. Checkout master again.
> 6. git status shows that a file has been deleted (i.e. the file was
> removed from the file system and the staging area shows it as
> deleted).
>
> The file exists in both the feature branch and the master branch. As
> best as we can tell, the file is identical on both commits.
> The issue occurs on multiple platforms - tested on Windows and OS X.
> It only occurs for 1 specific file.
>
> Based on the activity of the file, nothing stands out as unusual.
>
> How we go about troubleshooting this and determining the cause?
>
> Thanks,
> Paul van Wichen.

Re: Git checkout issue - deleting file without apparent reason

[Jeff King]

On Tue, May 02, 2017 at 09:33:02PM -0400, Paul van Wichen wrote:

> We are having a strange issue that we haven't been able to pin down.
> Scenario: master branch and feature branch both have a specific file.
> 1. Master checked out.
> 2. git status show no changes / clean staging area.
> 3. Checkout feature branch .
> 4. git status show no changes / clean staging area.
> 5. Checkout master again.
> 6. git status shows that a file has been deleted (i.e. the file was
> removed from the file system and the staging area shows it as
> deleted).
> 
> The file exists in both the feature branch and the master branch. As
> best as we can tell, the file is identical on both commits.
> The issue occurs on multiple platforms - tested on Windows and OS X.
> It only occurs for 1 specific file.

Just a guess, but might there be another file in the repository whose
name differs only in case? On a case-insensitive filesystem that can
cause gremlins like this, because the filesystem cannot represent all of
the states in the git tree.

-Peff