Cannot push to main but can push to master #22512

OnlineTeachingNow · 2021-02-16T10:56:44Z

OnlineTeachingNow
Feb 16, 2021

Hello, all. I am new to Github and have been carefully following several tutorials in order to create my first repository that results in nothing but failure and confusion.

When I create a repository, I see that the only branch is labeled as “main”. However, in Git bash, I never see main, my directory is instead labeled “(master)”. However, I assume this is some hangover from this new PC change, so I decided to do everything by referring to the ‘main’ branch, which I have read is no different from the master and is the societally approved way of referring to the most important branch going forward.

I do all my pull/commit commands with main, i.e. git pull origin main and it seems to work. However, in the stage of pushing (git push origin main), I get this error: error: src refspec main does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to ‘BLAH · GitHub blah blah.git’

I have read over and over again that this is because I didn’t commit properly. However, I commit again and it says: On branch master nothing to commit, working tree clean (so, again, it refers to a master branch that doesn’t exist).

So, I changed my push to “git push origin master” and now it adds a master branch to my repository and adds all the project files as expected to that branch. But, now my repository is clearly racist, which implicates me and my products as racist as well.

My question is what in the heck is going on? What is the difference between main and master? Why can I not commit to main but can create a master branch and commit to that? Why does Git Bash refer to my main branch as a master branch? If I create a master branch, is the main branch still the master one?

Answered by airtower-luna

Mar 31, 2021

The difference is the name: Your local branch is called master, the remote one main. By default git push origin <branch> will push that branch to a remote branch of the same name. If you really want to you can override that and explicitly push from your local master to remote main:

git push origin master:main

However, it might be much easier to rename your local branch to match the remote one:

git branch -m master main

View full answer

jdevfullstack · 2021-03-10T03:31:01Z

jdevfullstack
Mar 10, 2021

you may further install GitHub Desktop, through GitHub Desktop, your problem might be solved, it’s just like it’s the middle man between git ang GitHub.

Now, regarding your question, there is no difference. But GitHub decided that instead of master, it should be called main because the term master indicates slavery. So, they decided to change that to main.

1 reply

avajscript Nov 18, 2023

what a joke

OnlineTeachingNow · 2021-03-31T06:26:40Z

OnlineTeachingNow
Mar 31, 2021
Author

Thanks for your response. However, there is clearly a difference between Main and Master because I can only use main sometimes and not other times. For example:

I create a new repository and try to pull from the master
$ git pull origin master
fatal: couldn’t find remote ref master
So, then I try to pull from main, which is successful.
$ git pull origin main
remote: Enumerating objects: 3, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (2/2), done.
remote: Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
Unpacking objects: 100% (3/3), 1.09 KiB | 23.00 KiB/s, done.
From GitHub - OnlineTeachingNow/TileVania: 2D Tile game created in Gamedev.tv's Unity course

branch main → FETCH_HEAD
[new branch] main → origin/main

However, when I check the available branches, it says there is only a master branch!
$ git branch

master

I commit the files.
I push to the main, which gives me an error.
$ git push origin main
error: src refspec main does not match any
error: failed to push some refs to ‘https://github.com/OnlineTeachingNow/TileVania.git’
So, I push to the master, which is successful.
$ git push origin master
Enumerating objects: 5031, done.
Counting objects: 100% (5031/5031), done.
Delta compression using up to 8 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (5017/5017), done.
Writing objects: 100% (5030/5030), 17.01 MiB | 7.67 MiB/s, done.
Total 5030 (delta 2730), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Resolving deltas: 100% (2730/2730), done.
remote:
remote: Create a pull request for ‘master’ on GitHub by visiting:
remote: url
remote:
url

[new branch] master → master

This is absolutely ridiculous! What is the difference between these two? Why can I only pull from main but push to master?

0 replies

airtower-luna · 2021-03-31T06:44:46Z

airtower-luna
Mar 31, 2021

The difference is the name: Your local branch is called master, the remote one main. By default git push origin <branch> will push that branch to a remote branch of the same name. If you really want to you can override that and explicitly push from your local master to remote main:

git push origin master:main

However, it might be much easier to rename your local branch to match the remote one:

git branch -m master main

3 replies

Gaalpos Jan 24, 2024

thanks for the help!!

Sulphite05 Mar 22, 2024

! [rejected] master -> main (fetch first)
error: failed to push some refs to 'github.com:Sulphite05/MyNotes.git'
hint: Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do not
hint: have locally. This is usually caused by another repository pushing to
hint: the same ref. If you want to integrate the remote changes, use
hint: 'git pull' before pushing again.
hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.

beelalamin Mar 26, 2024

Before Push rebase then push :

git pull --rebase origin main

OnlineTeachingNow · 2021-03-31T07:08:28Z

OnlineTeachingNow
Mar 31, 2021
Author

OK, thank you for the clarification. Would I have to rename the local master branch every time I create a new project? Why is the default on my local branch called ‘master’? I did not create that. Is that the default of Git Bash? Aren’t Git Hub and Bash made by the same people? Why did they decide to be confusingly “antiracist” in one thing, but maintain the “racist” status quo in the other program? The least they could have done is implement consistency.

0 replies

airtower-luna · 2021-03-31T07:20:01Z

airtower-luna
Mar 31, 2021

OnlineTeachingNow:

Aren’t Git Hub and Bash made by the same people?

Nope. GitHub is a company building on Git. I’m pretty sure some GitHub employees are contributing to Git, but it’s separate.

Git somewhat recently (version 2.28) introduced the init.defaultBranch option to let you configure the name of the default branch on init, with the eventual goal of moving away from master (after making sure nothing relies on that name).

0 replies

OnlineTeachingNow · 2021-03-31T07:21:43Z

OnlineTeachingNow
Mar 31, 2021
Author

Got it. Thanks so much for answering my questions. I’ll be renaming the local branch for future projects.

0 replies

Momo979 · 2022-02-16T02:48:18Z

Momo979
Feb 16, 2022

Thank you, this was really annoying me!

0 replies

wzm2256 · 2023-07-27T10:12:33Z

wzm2256
Jul 27, 2023

Thanks for your answer. I have been struggling to fight this error for one hour. My local default branch is main, but the remote overleaf branch is still master, so strange errors keep showing up! I will rename my local branch to solve this.

Why are all the fuss about master and main? Github should do something more meaningful than just changing those boring names if they really want to stop racisim or other stuffs!

0 replies

Kaushan-Dutta · 2023-07-28T19:41:37Z

Kaushan-Dutta
Jul 28, 2023

If the above solution still not works then make a force push. And since this problem will occur just during the first time push no loss of data will occur.

0 replies

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Cannot push to main but can push to master #22512

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