Git: "Error: refusing to create funny ref 'HEAD' remotely" for initial push

Question

I am attempting an initial push of my Git repository from Egit (Eclipse Git) to GitHub. Unfortunately I am getting the following error:

error: refusing to create funny ref 'HEAD' remotely

I set both the source and destination ref to 'HEAD'

What does this error message mean?

score 27 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 13 '12 at 00:29

I fixed this by selecting master (refs/heads/master) as the source ref instead. Egit then automatically set the destination ref to master as well. I suppose that this command tells git to create the master branch, while selecting HEAD either tries to create a branch called HEAD or tries to push to the current (non-existing) remote HEAD.

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 12 '18 at 23:22

2

Selecting the "master [branch]" item from the Source ref list will insert "refs/heads/master" into the Source ref field.

Before:

After:

edited Jun 12 '18 at 23:22

Jason Aller

3,541
28
38
38

answered Jun 12 '18 at 13:11

Git: "Error: refusing to create funny ref 'HEAD' remotely" for initial push

2 Answers2