[Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Thomas Christensen]

Hi,

I am having this issue on Debian with kernel 2.6.25 (2.6.24 works fine)
and git 1.5.5.3.

  $ git push /media/KINGSTON/foo.git
  fatal: '/media/KINGSTON/foo.git': unable to chdir or not a git archive
  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

A notable difference between these 2 kernels is this line:

  [   62.575939] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT
  filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!

which appears in 2.6.25.

If this bug should be filed against Debian I will do so.

	Thomas

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[David Tweed]

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Thomas Christensen
<thomasc@thomaschristensen.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am having this issue on Debian with kernel 2.6.25 (2.6.24 works fine)
> and git 1.5.5.3.
>
>  $ git push /media/KINGSTON/foo.git
>  fatal: '/media/KINGSTON/foo.git': unable to chdir or not a git archive
>  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
>
> A notable difference between these 2 kernels is this line:
>
>  [   62.575939] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT
>  filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
>
> which appears in 2.6.25.

I don't remember if it gives this particular error message, but some
vfat mounting options cause the file 'HEAD' to appear to the
filesystem as 'head' which git doesn't like. (I don't think there any
other basic git files which have uppercase.)It's worth having a look
and see if that's happened.

-- 
cheers, dave tweed__________________________
david.tweed@gmail.com
Rm 124, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading.
"while having code so boring anyone can maintain it, use Python." --
attempted insult seen on slashdot

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Teemu Likonen]

Thomas Christensen wrote (2008-06-02 12:20 +0200):

> I am having this issue on Debian with kernel 2.6.25 (2.6.24 works fine)
> and git 1.5.5.3.
> 
>   $ git push /media/KINGSTON/foo.git
>   fatal: '/media/KINGSTON/foo.git': unable to chdir or not a git archive
>   fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
> 
> A notable difference between these 2 kernels is this line:
> 
>   [   62.575939] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT
>   filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
> 
> which appears in 2.6.25.
> 
> If this bug should be filed against Debian I will do so.

Hmm, for example KDE automatically mounts VFAT filesystems with mount
option "utf8" when using UTF-8 locale. VFAT uses UTF-16 in filenames and
the only way to convert filenames losslessly (apart from the case
insensitive issue) between Linux and VFAT is to use UTF-8 locale in
Linux. I have described the subject in the Debian bug #417324:

http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=417324

What locale are you using? What mount options did you use when you
mounted the /media/KINGSTON/ filesystem?

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Thomas Christensen]

Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> writes:

> Thomas Christensen wrote (2008-06-02 12:20 +0200):
>
> Hmm, for example KDE automatically mounts VFAT filesystems with mount
> option "utf8" when using UTF-8 locale. VFAT uses UTF-16 in filenames and
> the only way to convert filenames losslessly (apart from the case
> insensitive issue) between Linux and VFAT is to use UTF-8 locale in
> Linux. I have described the subject in the Debian bug #417324:
>
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=417324
>
> What locale are you using? What mount options did you use when you
> mounted the /media/KINGSTON/ filesystem?

LANG=en_DK.UTF-8

/dev/sda1 on /media/KINGSTON type vfat
(rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=1000)

It is auto mounted by the Gnome desktop.  I have tried to mount it
manually without mount options as well:

/dev/sda1 on /mnt type vfat (rw)

But alas, same problem.  I have been fiddling with the shortname option
and iocharset too, also without success.

	Thomas

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Thomas Christensen]

Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> writes:

> Thomas Christensen wrote (2008-06-02 12:20 +0200):
>
> Hmm, for example KDE automatically mounts VFAT filesystems with mount
> option "utf8" when using UTF-8 locale. VFAT uses UTF-16 in filenames and
> the only way to convert filenames losslessly (apart from the case
> insensitive issue) between Linux and VFAT is to use UTF-8 locale in
> Linux. I have described the subject in the Debian bug #417324:
>
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=417324
>
> What locale are you using? What mount options did you use when you
> mounted the /media/KINGSTON/ filesystem?

LANG=en_DK.UTF-8

/dev/sda1 on /media/KINGSTON type vfat
(rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=1000)

It is auto mounted by the Gnome desktop.  I have tried to mount it
manually without mount options as well:

/dev/sda1 on /mnt type vfat (rw)

But alas, same problem.  I have been fiddling with the shortname option
and iocharset too, also without success.

	Thomas

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[David Tweed]

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 12:04 PM, Thomas Christensen
<thomasc@thomaschristensen.org> wrote:
> Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> writes:
>
>> Thomas Christensen wrote (2008-06-02 12:20 +0200):
>>
>> Hmm, for example KDE automatically mounts VFAT filesystems with mount
>> option "utf8" when using UTF-8 locale. VFAT uses UTF-16 in filenames and
>> the only way to convert filenames losslessly (apart from the case
>> insensitive issue) between Linux and VFAT is to use UTF-8 locale in
>> Linux. I have described the subject in the Debian bug #417324:
>>
>> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=417324
>>
>> What locale are you using? What mount options did you use when you
>> mounted the /media/KINGSTON/ filesystem?
>
> LANG=en_DK.UTF-8
>
> /dev/sda1 on /media/KINGSTON type vfat
> (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=lower,uid=1000)

I've got shortname=mixed (but via a manually set up fstab; I don't
know what the automounters do.)

-- 
cheers, dave tweed__________________________
david.tweed@gmail.com
Rm 124, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading.
"while having code so boring anyone can maintain it, use Python." --
attempted insult seen on slashdot

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Thomas Christensen]

"David Tweed" <david.tweed@gmail.com> writes:

> I've got shortname=mixed (but via a manually set up fstab; I don't
> know what the automounters do.)

Bingo!  Thanks.

	Thomas

Re: [Bug] vfat: Not a git archive

[Stephen Sinclair]

On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 6:37 AM, David Tweed <david.tweed@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Thomas Christensen
> <thomasc@thomaschristensen.org> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am having this issue on Debian with kernel 2.6.25 (2.6.24 works fine)
>> and git 1.5.5.3.
>>
>>  $ git push /media/KINGSTON/foo.git
>>  fatal: '/media/KINGSTON/foo.git': unable to chdir or not a git archive
>>  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
>>
>> A notable difference between these 2 kernels is this line:
>>
>>  [   62.575939] FAT: utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT
>>  filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
>>
>> which appears in 2.6.25.
>
> I don't remember if it gives this particular error message, but some
> vfat mounting options cause the file 'HEAD' to appear to the
> filesystem as 'head' which git doesn't like. (I don't think there any
> other basic git files which have uppercase.)It's worth having a look
> and see if that's happened.

I recently had some issue where I got this "Not a git archive"
message.  Turned out it was something stupid I had done during a
failed filter-branch operation, related to deleting my refs.  But the
message "Not a git archive" wasn't very helpful.  Finally I found that
recreating my refs manually (using cat) did the trick.  But it would
have been nice to have a more specific error message along with "Not a
git archive", like "HEAD points to refs/heads/master, but file
.git/refs/heads/master not found."


Steve