fatal: A branch named 'gh-pages' already exists

Question

I made a template sale website (gatsby / react). I cloned my template GitHub repo and changed the remote origin to a new private repo, pushing to which works fine.

I deploy to gh-pages with npm srcipt "deploy": "gatsby build --prefix-paths && gh-pages -d public" The first time I ran this command it seemed to stall so I control c'd out of it. Now, when I try to deploy I get the error "fatal: A branch named 'gh-pages' already exists."

git branch -a shows: remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master remotes/origin/gh-pages remotes/origin/master

But there is not a gh-pages branch on gitHub.

I tried rm -rf node_modules/gh-pages/.cache didn't work. Also, git push origin --delete gh-pages which gave "error: unable to delete 'gh-pages': remote ref does not exist".

I uninstalled and reinstalled gh-pages.

Vinic

Is there more code I should show? – Vinic

So you kept the .git directory from the initial clone? Have you looked into creating a github template? docs.github.com/en/github/… then creating your new repo from the template? docs.github.com/en/github/… – Collyrium

you may want to take a look at this #35942066 – Connective

@Collyrium Thanks for the tip. I think I will make the original repo a template. – Vinic

It is a timeout because Github is waiting to enter your credentials to authenticate you. Mostly it's a screen on your desktop that we don't see most of the time – Supertax

Not sure if it's relevant here, but in my case this appeared to be caused by switching to the local gh-pages branch when trying to run the gh-pages command. I switched back to master to fix the problem. – Nepean

Answer 1

I had to manually remove the folder node_modules/.cache/gh-pages to get the deployment to work.

Prior to this I had tried git fetch --prune, which removed remotes/origin/gh-page. I don't know if pruning the branches was a necessary step or not.

Vinic

I just rm -rf node_modules/.cache/gh-pages without git fetch --prune and it fixed the problem. – Garrygarson

Thanks this worked! I just manually delete the gh-pages folder from node_modules/.cache from my editor (VSCode) – Farahfarand

You can also add that rm command to your predeploy script to save having to manually run it every time. "predeploy": "rm -rf node_modules/.cache/gh-pages && npm run build", – Inadvertent

Yes this fixed the problem for me. I removed the remote branch gh-pages too, no prune needed. – Benny

Answer 2

Just manually deleting the folder node_modules/.cache/gh-pages worked.

Roselba

Please don't add "thank you" as an answer. Once you have sufficient reputation, you will be able to vote up questions and answers that you found helpful. – Pew

Answer 3

On windows, you can run rm -rf node_modules/.cache/gh-pages. or manually go to the node_modules folder and delete the .cache/gh-pages.

Prate

Answer 4

delete gh-pages from node_modules/.cache then run :- npm run deploy after this your page is Successfully publish on gh page

Adermin

Answer 5

if its instaled gllobaly it will be in this path: windows path will be : %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\gh-pages\.cache\<GITREPO>

just remove this Dir

Quietism

Answer 6

create new repository in git hub and follow the steps as usual then the game is over!

Breakfast