GIT error: fatal: /usr/libexec/git-core/git-submodule cannot be used without a working tree

Question

I have a git repo with a submodule.

I would use in post-receive hook file:

git --git-dir="$GIT_DIR" --work-tree="$GIT_WORKDIR1" submodule update --init --recursive 

but I get the following error:

remote: fatal: /usr/libexec/git-core/git-submodule cannot be used without a working tree.  

I did not get solution for this problem.

What should I do to make it work?

Nickels

Answer 1

You may see this error if you've renamed the path (working-tree) of a git submodule. In my case I had updated the path in .gitmodules to match my new path and thought I was good. But when I did a git pull later it added new files in the old path. This is because there are two places the module path is defined. You need to also update your "working-tree" as defined in the .git/modules/{modulename}/config file.

There are some great details about the working-tree on this post as well.

Nakisha

Thanks for your answer. I work on another task currently, will check this problem, when I return to this task. – Nickels

Answer 2

I also stumbled across this issue and found it is caused, because I needed to cd into the workdir first. I am not sure why this is required, maybe it is a git bug? You can also pass the path via -C and set the workdir to .:

git --git-dir="$GIT_DIR" --work-tree=. -C "$GIT_WORKDIR1" submodule update --init --recursive

Also I noticed that in my plesk git user interface (netcup.com) variables do not seems to work, I have to specify absolute paths without variables here:

git --git-dir=/git/repo_name.git --work-tree=. -C /httpdocs/website submodule update --init --recursive

Camion

This fixed it for me. It certainly appears to be a git submodule bug, where it doesn't respect --work-tree. It's still present as of git version 2.39.2 – Selfhelp

This also fixes checkout --recurse-submodules: git --git-dir="${GIT_DIR}" --work-tree=. -C "${SOURCE_DIR}" checkout --recurse-submodules "${BRANCH}" -- . With the work-tree set directly, this would checkout the source into the work-tree directory, but silently fail to checkout any submodules. – Selfhelp

Answer 3

I got this same error when running git submodule inside of a shell I spawned while I was running git log (with the !bash command). What also confused me was that I could run all git commands if I ran them with sudo, and that this problem affected multiple repos, not only the one I was running git log into.

The solution of course is to exit the subshell and the git log command.

Labrador

Answer 4

FYI for future readers: this also happens on Windows if you cd to your repo folder via a symbolic link, as the working directory reported by the OS doesn't match the truth.

Spade

It happened for me on Windows when using the Git Bash, probably for the same reason? (The 'simulated' /d/folder/repo does not match D:\folder\repo) – Kaczmarek