Broken branch after git commit - tracked files in staging area can't be removed with restore --staged, or commit or stash

From: Torsten Krah <krah.tm@gmail.com>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Broken branch after git commit - tracked files in staging area can't be removed with restore --staged, or commit or stash
Date: Tue, 07 Jan 2020 13:55:50 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <07c84224bb0b093ab3770be9b5ab2ec23ce2d31a.camel@gmail.com> (raw)

Hi,

as written here https://git-scm.com/community I should sent reports to
this list - if I am mistaken please tell me where to direct this
question / problem I've encountered.

I've got a problem with a git branch and as this is the second time now
(I never hit that problem before I've started using the "new" git
restore --staged command - but since I am using it its the second time
now - maybe by accident, maybe related - I don't know).

Maybe someone can help me with this matter.

I am using 2.24.1 git and my starting point was a local branch and I
wanted to removed some files from the last commit I made.
So I did this:

1. git reset --soft HEAD~1

Now I had all my files from the last commit in the staging area and to
remove some of them I did:

2. git restore --staged $my-files

This worked too - now those files were moved to the working tree in git
status and were untracked and the rest looked still fine in the staging
area.

3. git commit

Now I made my commit - had a look on that with git show and it looks
fine.

But now I've hit the problem - looking with "git status" I was left now
with 6 files in the staging area all marked as deleted - still they are
in the working tree.
But I did never deleted them and the most annoying part now - I can't
fix that.

I tried:

1. git restore --staged

Does not change anything, still deleted in the staging area.

2. git stash

Does create a stash entry (did not look at the content though yet) but
staging area still unchanged.

3. git commit

Does create a commit but the whole commit is empty - nothing from the
tracked staging area is there and "git status" is unchanged - still 6
tracked deleted files.

I don't know what went wrong and I am unable to fix it - help
appreciated.
I can't share the whole git repository but I can try whatever git
command or other tool output may help here to shed some light on this -
as written I don't have a clear reproducer, I just have my branch with
a borked staging area.

thx and kind regards

Torsten

PS: Of cause I can delete the whole repo and clone it again or remove
the branch and start from a fresh new one ;) but I want to analyse
this.