git update-index --assume-unchanged returns "fatal unable to mark file"

I am having the same problem as the OP on this post, but I don't understand the answer marked as correct (I don't see that it explains how to fix the situation)

I do this and get this error:

$ git update-index --assume-unchanged web.config
fatal: Unable to mark file web.config

1. The file IS added to the repository

2. It is NOT in .git/info/exclude

3. It is NOT in .gitignore (it was, but I took it out, then forced web.config to be added using git add -f web.config, committed, and pushed those changes to the repo)

4. When I do Git ls-files -o it is NOT there

So what can I do to fix?

I was having the same problem as you, and had followed the same four steps that you indicated above, and had the same results. This included the fact that my file was listed when executing git ls-files -o. However in my case, I also tried executing git update-index --assume-unchanged against a file that was not listed when executing ls-files -o, and I still received the same error "fatal: Unable to mark file".

I thought that perhaps it was a bug, and downloaded the latest version of git, but this did not help.

What I finally realized is that this command is case sensitive! This includes the full path and file name. After updating path to the directory so that the full path was specified with proper casing, the command executed properly.

Note that this was with Git for Windows, so you're results may vary with other platforms.

I was having the same issue on a Mac. Case-sensitivity wasn't an issue for me - the problem was I needed to reset my git first:

Problem:

 git update-index --assume-unchanged index.php
 fatal: Unable to mark file index.php

Solution:

git reset HEAD
Unstaged changes after reset:
M	index.php
git update-index --assume-unchanged index.php

In my case the tree I was marking was a directory, and not a file as in you case, and I was missing the forward slash after its name.

Incorrect -

git update-index --assume-unchanged directory-name

Correct -

git update-index --assume-unchanged directory-name/

Note the forward slash(/) in the end.

Make sure the file is added to git repo, if not add the file in git repo and then try it will work.

fatal: Unable to mark file Localization/el-GR.js

What you can do is:

1. Move to the correct path where the file is present in your local (in GITBASH)
2. Update the index $git update-index --assume-unchanged <file name>

This helped me! :)

If your path has spaces, you may get this error even if you have the casing right.

This results in the "fatal" error:

git update-index --assume-unchanged code/Solution Files/WebEssentials-Settings-json

To fix it, simply add quotes around the path.

git update-index --assume-unchanged "code/Solution Files/WebEssentials-Settings-json"

My Problem was, that I tried the command with a * wildcard assuming it would be recursive, but it wasn't.

So what I did was

$ git reset HEAD
Unstaged changes after reset: 
M	.gradle/1.9/taskArtifacts/cache.properties.lock
M	.gradle/1.9/taskArtifacts/fileHashes.bin
M	.gradle/1.9/taskArtifacts/fileSnapshots.bin
M	.gradle/1.9/taskArtifacts/outputFileStates.bin
M	.gradle/1.9/taskArtifacts/taskArtifacts.bin

executing

$ git update-index --assume-unchanged .gradle/1.9/taskArtifacts/*

worked for me then and didn't result in OPs and my problem.

In my case, I tried to use any of the methods above, but no luck.

After many attempts, I just thought to add my file to index through.

git add myfile.php

Git refused this action but he advised me to make it forcibly.

git add myfile.php -f

And that worked for me.

--assume-unchanged is about slow file systems, and a users promise that Git doesn't need to check this file, as Git can assume its unchanged. But some command still do check and produce 'surprise'!

Do not use on files which change.

Sorry to be the bringer of that news (I have a patch in process to change that documentation).

Make sure you have "web.config" checked in.

If it isn't, you will get this error message.

One common mistake around using this command is trying to assume either not tracked file or ignored file by git already.

Make sure first that the file is tracked by running

git ls-files | grep relative_path/to/file

If it's not showing your file, then you need to add it first:

git add relative_path/to/file

If this shows your file, or you've already added that file to git, then you should be able to run git assume commands normally:

git update-index --skip-worktree relative_path/to/file

or for folders

git update-index --skip-worktree relative_path/to/folder/

you can check if your file is assumed to be ignored by running

git ls-files -v | grep ^S

The S character represents skipped files.

So I had this same error when I use this:

git update-index --assume-unchanged appsettings.Development.json

So I changed it to

git update-index --assume-unchanged appsettings.development.json

I actually tried many methods at first but I ended up using this. So I guess its case sensitive

I had this problem when I was trying to untrack *.orig files.

This is what I did to untrack them:

$git reset -- *.orig

if that doesn't work:

$git clean -fd

Maybe useful for someone. I had the same problem and was no syntax problem, no name with spaces, no path problem, and git reset command didn't work. I was commiting from a folder inside apache www and apache service was stopped. Started again apache service and the error is gone

I found that sometimes this doesn't work because you've already committed the file to your .gitignore and made a push or pull. You only need to make the push and your file should be ignored on subsequent commits even when you locally modify the file.

For all future visitors. None of the above resolved my issue. What I realized is the .gitignore file must be placed in the right directory. In my case, once I moved .gitignore to application's root directory the issue was resolved.

Check if the file to be marked exists and spells correctly, especially the file path and file separator. The file separators of windows system and linux system are in different directions.

Had the same problem, nothing else worked (my file was tracked, and NOT in gitignore). I realised I copied the file name from terminal output a few lines above, and that made it copy the blank space AFTER the file name. Even though it looks like there is no space, I had a lot of space at the end. So copying just the file path, and keeping it in double qoutes, that helped. I also did a git reset HEAD first.

git update-index --assume-unchanged "app/src/main/java/com/username/projectName/Utils.kt"

In my case, i was getting the fatal: Unable to mark file error because i had pushed the file to my git repo, so git was not able to find it, first make sure you commit and push the template file that you want to keep in github but do not track it later.

Once pushed, now you can run the command git update-index --skip-worktree YOUR_FILE and modify it without this being tracked

I had the same issue with cygwin in windows. Giving the full file path