GIT Gotchas and other things that make you cry

Encountered x file(s) that should have been pointers, but weren’t

We encountered this issue when trying to merge master after someone had committed a slew of PDFs. Although we couldn’t identify the exact situation that caused this problem, the result is that nobody could merge master into their branches.

It looks like this was once filed as an issue with git, itself: https://github.com/git-lfs/git-lfs/issues/1939

But amongst the threaded comments, it looks like there is a root issue with the file types that are used to compare files and that on strange and rare occasions a unicorn fart fills the git-void with pain by changing these on the server.

After several dozen attempts, I came across this gem of a command:

$ git lfs migrate import --everything --include='*.pdf'

migrate: override changes in your working copy? [Y/n] Y
migrate: changes in your working copy will be overridden ...
migrate: Sorting commits: ..., done
migrate: Rewriting commits: 100% (5940/5940), done
migrate: Updating refs: ..., done
migrate: checkout: ..., done

The pain was almost over. Let’s see how merge does, now.

$ git merge --ff-only

fatal: Not possible to fast-forward, aborting.

Hmmm… Okay. Let’s not force a fast-forward merge; let’s just do a regular merge.

$ git merge

warning: Cannot merge binary files: Deployment Scripts/CopyFiles/UpperGreatLakesSinglesChallenge.pdf (HEAD vs. refs/remotes/origin/bugfix/13032-ems-error-saving-ppc)
:
:
CONFLICT (add/add): Merge conflict in Deployment Scripts/CopyFiles/UpperGreatLakesSinglesChallenge.pdf
Auto-merging Deployment Scripts/CopyFiles/UpperGreatLakesSinglesChallenge.pdf
:
:

Then I performed a manual merge on all the files by taking the server’s file (on the right in Sublime Merge, when resolving conflicts).
But Sublime Merge couldn’t actually commit the non-changes, so I went back to the git console to wrap up tackling the lfs-merge nightmare (like a Dream Warrior to Krueger):

$ git commit

[bugfix/13032-ems-error-saving-ppc f093b0c49] Merge remote-tracking branch 'refs/remotes/origin/bugfix/13032-ems-error-saving-ppc' into bugfix/13032-ems-error-saving-ppc