Git merge errors

Question

I have a git branch called 9-sign-in-out with perfectly working code, and I want to turn it into the master. I'm currently on the master branch.

$ git branch
9-sign-in-out
* master

I'm trying to switch to 9-sign-in-out branch, but it doesn't allow me to:

$ git checkout 9-sign-in-out
app/helpers/application_helper.rb: needs merge
config/routes.rb: needs merge
error: you need to resolve your current index first

Any idea how can I ignore all the master branch errors and turn the 9-sign-in-out branch into the master? Maybe git rebase? But I don't want to lose the code in 9-sign-in-out branch.

Do you mean you don't want to lose your uncomitted code in 9-sign-in-out? — Mauvis Ledford
– Mauvis Ledford, Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:09
@Mauvis: I already committed my codes in the branch 9-sign-in-out. — Sayanee
– Sayanee, Commented May 19, 2011 at 9:39

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:02:59Z

750

It's worth understanding what those error messages mean - needs merge and error: you need to resolve your current index first indicate that a merge failed, and that there are conflicts in those files. If you've decided that whatever merge you were trying to do was a bad idea after all, you can put things back to normal with:

git reset --merge

However, otherwise you should resolve those merge conflicts, as described in the git manual.

Once you've dealt with that by either technique you should be able to checkout the 9-sign-in-out branch. The problem with just renaming your 9-sign-in-out to master, as suggested in wRAR's answer is that if you've shared your previous master branch with anyone, this will create problems for them, since if the history of the two branches diverged, you'll be publishing rewritten history.

Essentially what you want to do is to merge your topic branch 9-sign-in-out into master but exactly keep the versions of the files in the topic branch. You could do this with the following steps:

# Switch to the topic branch:
git checkout 9-sign-in-out

# Create a merge commit, which looks as if it's merging in from master, but is
# actually discarding everything from the master branch and keeping everything
# from 9-sign-in-out:
git merge -s ours master

# Switch back to the master branch:
git checkout master

# Merge the topic branch into master - this should now be a fast-forward
# that leaves you with master exactly as 9-sign-in-out was:
git merge 9-sign-in-out

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:02

CommunityBot

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answered May 15, 2011 at 7:23

Mark Longair

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3 Comments

Sayanee Over a year ago

Mark, I finally understood what you were saying after I got the error again to merge now. I'm, however having this error::::::::::::: Sayanee:twitter sweska$ git checkout master error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout: webrat.log Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can switch branches. Aborting::::::::::::::::: any way, to user the webrat.log in the branch and make it merge with the master?

Mark Longair Over a year ago

@Sayanee: that's a different error, arising from different circumstances, and it would be better to ask a new question about that if you're confused by it. (Briefly, though, git's stopping you from switching branches since that would overwrite uncommitted changes in webrat.log.)

sudo Over a year ago

I used to just rm the whole thing and reclone. But this is nicer.

NearHuscarl · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-18 09:46:26Z

60

Change branch, discarding all local modifications

git checkout -f 9-sign-in-out

Rename the current branch to master, discarding current master

git branch -M master

edited Sep 18, 2020 at 9:46

NearHuscarl

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answered May 15, 2011 at 5:58

wRAR

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1 Comment

Thomas Over a year ago

I think its much cleaner to reset the merge like Mark suggested below instead of forcing the checkout.

Jingpeng Wu · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-31 01:35:06Z

15

as suggested in git status,

Unmerged paths:                                                                                                                                
(use "git add <file>..." to mark resolution)                                                                                                 

    both modified:   a.jl                                  
    both modified:   b.jl

I used git add to finish the merging, then git checkout works fine.

answered Jan 31, 2018 at 1:35

Jingpeng Wu

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Comments

Jasperan · Accepted Answer · 2025-08-24 14:34:41Z

6

I got this when using GitHub Desktop when trying to switch from a dev branch to master, even after I had resolved all merge conflicts.

After typing git add * on the command line it allowed me to switch branches again.

edited Aug 24, 2025 at 14:34

answered Jul 7, 2022 at 22:15

Jasperan

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Comments

Chamila Maddumage · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-02 14:48:10Z

5

I had the same issue when switching from a dev branch to master branch. What I did was commit my changes and switch to the master branch. You might have uncommitted changes.

And also you can try this git reset --merge as well. This can be used to resolve any conflicts and revert.

edited Mar 2, 2021 at 14:48

answered Dec 24, 2020 at 12:38

Chamila Maddumage

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Muhammad Shoaib Murtaza · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-07 20:12:39Z

2

my issue was (master|REBASE 1/1)

this command worked for me

 git rebase --skip

answered May 7, 2020 at 20:12

Muhammad Shoaib Murtaza

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Comments

Baz Guvenkaya · Accepted Answer · 2023-03-03 01:54:15Z

0

This doesn't answer the exact scenario described in the question. It answers the following scenario which you end up with the same error messages. Posting here because this SO link comes up first when Googling for this.

This usually happens for GitHub Desktop users.

If you made changes locally on a branch that's deleted in remote, then merged from master, and already resolved conflicts, and now you cannot move your changes to any other branch because of the;

you need to resolve your current index first, and needs merge error,

simply do below:

# unset the upstream which is deleted 
- git branch --unset-upstream
# rename the branch
- git branch -m <newname>

From here you can do the usual.

answered Mar 3, 2023 at 1:54

Baz Guvenkaya

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Comments

Parasp2008 · Accepted Answer · 2018-03-19 06:31:24Z

-10

git commit -m "Merged master fixed conflict."

answered Mar 19, 2018 at 6:31

Parasp2008

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