Seeing "BUG: refs.c:2083: reference backend is unknown" when attempting to clone

[exoosh]

• [X] I was not able to find an open or closed issue matching what I'm seeing

Setup

• Which version of Git for Windows are you using? -> Its 64-bit

  $ git --version --build-options
  git version 2.44.0.windows.1
  cpu: x86_64
  built from commit: ad0bbfffa543db6979717be96df630d3e5741331
  sizeof-long: 4
  sizeof-size_t: 8
  shell-path: /bin/sh
  feature: fsmonitor--daemon

• Windows 10 Pro, to be more precise 10.0.19045 Build 19045 (aka 22H2)

  $ cmd.exe /c ver
  Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.4046]
  (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

• What options did you set as part of the installation? Or did you choose the defaults?

$ cat /etc/install-options.txt
Editor Option: VIM
Custom Editor Path:
Default Branch Option: main
Path Option: Cmd
Plink Path: C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin\TortoiseGitPlink.exe
SSH Option: Plink
Tortoise Option: true
CURL Option: OpenSSL
CRLF Option: CRLFCommitAsIs
Bash Terminal Option: MinTTY
Git Pull Behavior Option: Merge
Use Credential Manager: Enabled
Performance Tweaks FSCache: Enabled
Enable Symlinks: Enabled
Enable Pseudo Console Support: Disabled
Enable FSMonitor: Enabled

• Any other interesting things about your environment that might be related to the issue you're seeing?

None that I am aware of

Details

• Which terminal/shell are you running Git from? e.g Bash/CMD/PowerShell/other

Bash within Windows Terminal

• What commands did you run to trigger this issue? If you can provide a Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable example this will help us understand the issue.

$ git -C test_helper clone https://github.com/bats-core/bats-core.git
Cloning into 'bats-core'...
BUG: refs.c:2083: reference backend is unknown

• What did you expect to occur after running these commands?

I expected the clone to commence and succeed (the directory test_helper existed!).

• What actually happened instead?

It aborted with the message:

BUG: refs.c:2083: reference backend is unknown

• If the problem was occurring with a specific repository, can you provide the URL to that repository to help us with testing?

https://github.com/bats-core/bats-core.git

[exoosh]

It should be noted that this works with the 2.43.0.windows.1 version of Git for Windows! I just downgraded back to it.

Z:\temp$ git -C test_helper clone https://github.com/bats-core/bats-core.git
Cloning into 'bats-core'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 9764, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (2750/2750), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (321/321), done.
remote: Total 9764 (delta 2561), reused 2535 (delta 2415), pack-reused 7014
Receiving objects: 100% (9764/9764), 2.34 MiB | 7.23 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (6024/6024), done.
Z:\temp$ git --version
git version 2.43.0.windows.1

[assarbad]

This is definitely not limited to Git for Windows. I am seeing the exact same thing on Manjaro:

$ git clone https://github.com/kee-org/keepassrpc.git
Cloning into 'keepassrpc'...
BUG: refs.c:2083: reference backend is unknown
error: git-remote-https died of signal 6
$ git --version
git version 2.44.0

@dscho Clearly someone created an issue in version 2.44.0 of Git and it also appears in Git for Windows.

NB: cloning with SSH works. And repo seems to be irrelevant, as long as HTTPS is used:

$ git clone https://github.com/git/git.git
Cloning into 'git'...
BUG: refs.c:2083: reference backend is unknown
error: git-remote-https died of signal 6

[assarbad]

• https://lore.kernel.org/all/72771da0-a0ef-4fd9-8071-6467cd7b6a6b@kernel-space.org/T/
  • TL;DR: 0fcc285c5e in conjunction with 18c9cb7524 introduced it and 199f44cb2e supposedly fixes it (and will be part of Git 2.45)
• https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/git/-/merge_requests/115

[dscho]

@assarbad would you be so kind as to provide a backport PR?

[exoosh]

@assarbad would you be so kind as to provide a backport PR?

Will do (same person, company account)

[dscho]

/add relnote bug A regression where git clone no longer worked in the presence of includeIf.*.onbranch config settings has been fixed.

The workflow run was started