Why did my Git repo enter a detached HEAD state?

Question

I ended up with a detached head today, the same problem as described in: git push says everything up-to-date even though I have local changes

As far as I know I didn't do anything out of the ordinary, just commits and pushes from my local repo.

So how did I end up with a detached HEAD?

Answer 1

I reproduced this just now by accident:

1. lists the remote branches

   git branch -r
         origin/Feature/f1234
         origin/master
   

2. I want to checkout one locally, so I cut paste:

   git checkout origin/Feature/f1234
   

3. Presto! Detached HEAD state

   You are in 'detached HEAD' state. [...])
   

---

Solution #1:

Do not include origin/ at the front of my branch spec when checking it out:

git checkout Feature/f1234

Solution #2:

Add -b parameter which creates a local branch from the remote

git checkout -b origin/Feature/f1234 or

git checkout -b Feature/f1234 it will fall back to origin automatically

Answer 2

When you checkout to a commit git checkout <commit-hash> or to a remote branch your HEAD will get detached and try to create a new commit on it.

Commits that are not reachable by any branch or tag will be garbage collected and removed from the repository after 30 days.

Another way to solve this is by creating a new branch for the newly created commit and checkout to it. git checkout -b <branch-name> <commit-hash>

This article illustrates how you can get to detached HEAD state.