How to get rid of "would clobber existing tag"
GitGit Problem Overview
I'm using git in VSCodium and each time I try to pull git is complaining.
Looking into the log I see
> git pull --tags origin master
From https://github.com/MY/REPO
* branch master -> FETCH_HEAD
! [rejected] latest -> latest (would clobber existing tag)
9428765..935da94 master -> origin/master
Doing the command with --force helps until the next time.
It's unclear to me what's going wrong here. What happened and how can I resolve this issue?
I mean: Besides trashing my local repo and cloning again.
Git Solutions
Solution 1 - Git
You should update your local tags with remote tags:
git fetch --tags -f
Then pull again.
Solution 2 - Git
Since you say it's unclear what's going wrong, I assume you're not using that tag for anything and you just want to do your own work.
Turn off this setting:
Or add this "git.pullTags": false in the settings.json file`
Now you're all set.
Detailed explanation:
Tags are just references to specific commits (just like branch names). The main difference is that git (as far as I know) assumes tags will not change, where branches are expected to be updated.
So, the "error" is that you have in your local a tag called latest pointing to commit X - but the remote has a tag called latest pointing to commit Y. If you apply the change from the remote you will overwrite your local tag.
VSCode will pull all tags by default, thus you get the error.
There isn't anything wrong with having a "moving" tag like latest, that just isn't something VSCode takes into account (personal opinion).
Alternatively, you can avoid the issue by using the command line and manually entering the git pull command. Specifically, you need to omit --tags to skip this step of the process.
If you do this, your tags will not be updated - but I don't think is a concern here.
Solution 3 - Git
The reason may be that you or other contributors deleted an original tag and recreated the same tag.
The solution:
git fetch --tags -f
Forced to refresh the local tag
When using the git pull --tags origin master
Therefore, you can add this "git.pullTags": false in the configuration file settings.json of the Vscode
Solution 4 - Git
Edit: To be clear, the original question was related to a git issue. While it may not be obvious, yarn can also have git dependencies. So for the 0.1% of users that has this error while running yarn install, this is for you! If not, just use the accepted/top answers.
I got this error for a package while trying to run yarn install. The accepted answer was for the current repo and didn't work for me, but this worked:
rm -rf **/node_modules && yarn cache clean
I'd tried just removing node_modules before, guess cleaning yarn cache was what did it.