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git svn clone gives remote refs error

Scott Peterson
Contributor
January 16, 2013

I am on Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, running Subversion 1.7.6 with Git version 1.8.0.mysysgit.0

I have Git running from a Bash window, not from a Windows command window

I am following the instructions to migrate my OnDemand Subversion repository to BitBucket - http://go-dvcs.atlassian.com/display/aod/Migrating+from+Subversion+to+Git+on+Bitbucket

Everything seemed to go well on the first section labled "Prepare." When I went to the "initial clone" page (http://go-dvcs.atlassian.com/display/aod/initial+clone) I ran into a few issues immediately with the git svn clone section. First of all I was getting an error that said "Expected FS format '2'; found format'4'. I found help for that which recommeded that I add the --pre-1.5-compatible flag to the svnadmin create command from the previous page. So, I remade my local SVN repository with the flag and the error went away.

I tried the command again, as follows:

$ git svn clone --trunk=/trunk --branches=/branches --tags=/tags --authors-file
=authors.txt file:////c/Temp/SVNMigration/TempProjects/TEST test.git

This returns the error:

svn-remote.svn: remote ref '/Program Files (x86)/Git/trunk:refs/remotes/trunk' must start with 'refs/'

I looked at the remote section in the git config file in my newly created test.git repository, and found the following:

[svn-remote "svn"]
	url = file:///c/Temp/SVNMigration/TempProjects
	fetch = TEST/C:/Program Files (x86)/Git/trunk:refs/remotes/trunk

Since this file was created by the process, how could it be the problem? How do I fix this?

Thanks,

Scott

2 answers

6 votes
quimrodriguez
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April 14, 2014

If someone happens to be in the same sittuation (if you search for "git config fetch = C:/Program Files (x86) remote ref" this page is the first result) I resolved this problem changing the clone command from:

$ git svn clone --authors-file=authors.txt --trunk=/trunk --branches=/branches --tags=/tags/Release http://internal.website.local/svn/project git-project

to this:

$ git svn clone --authors-file=authors.txt --trunk=trunk --branches=branches --tags=tags/Release  http://internal.website.local/svn/project git-project

Note the removed leading slash "/" from the trunk, branches and tags parameters.

0 votes
Scott Peterson
Contributor
January 28, 2013

As I said, I recived this error in Windows. Switching to Ubuntu fixed the problem, although, according to the directions, Windows should have worked.

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