108

Our remote master branch somehow got messed up. Current development code is on the master branch along with the latest commits. Obviously, the development code is not ready for the master branch.

So on my local repository, I did a reset to the latest tag, git reset --hard (Tag). The master branch is now correct on my local repository. Now when I try to push the changes on to the remote repository, git push origin master, I get an error:

To (REMOTE GIT REPOSITORY LOCATION)
 ! [rejected]        master -> master (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to '(REMOTE GIT REPOSITORY LOCATION)'
To prevent you from losing history, non-fast-forward updates were rejected
Merge the remote changes (e.g. 'git pull') before pushing again.  See the
'Note about fast-forwards' section of 'git push --help' for details.

So after looking around I found out the --force option. So I did a force push on to the remote repository, git push --force origin master, and I still got an error:

Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote: error: denying non-fast-forward refs/heads/master (you should pull first)
To (REMOTE GIT REPOSITORY LOCATION)
 ! [remote rejected] master -> master (non-fast-forward)
error: failed to push some refs to '(REMOTE GIT REPOSITORY LOCATION)'

I can't do a pull on master, because it contains development code which can't be on master.

Improve this question
6
  • 4
    I think the message means that you don't have the rights to do a non-fast-forward push.
    – svick
    Commented May 11, 2012 at 1:22
  • 5
    You were correct, thanks. In the config file for the repository on remote, denyNonFastforwards = true. I changed it to false, pushed my changes and then changed it back to true. Thanks again everyone, for the help.
    – samwell
    Commented May 11, 2012 at 1:33
  • 2
    @samwell please mark svick's answer as accepted
    – hultqvist
    Commented Apr 5, 2013 at 9:39
  • @samwell did svick's answer work for you or not?
    – Songo
    Commented Sep 22, 2014 at 14:57
  • 1
    For those who need details on how to disable denyNonFastForwards like samwell did, more instructions can be found here: stackoverflow.com/a/43721579/2073804
    – ron190
    Commented May 1, 2017 at 23:18

10 Answers 10

Reset to default
166

The message means that you're not allowed to do non-fast-forward push.

Your remote repository has most likely denyNonFastforwards = true in its config. If you change that, git push --force should work.

To change the setting, you need access to the machine with the remote repository. From there, do git config receive.denynonfastforwards false.

Improve this answer
9
  • 2
    Can you do a git config for a server? Or perhaps you were using that metaphorically. To play with these ideas I created a test repo in /opt/git (my git server space) and then I modified this setting in /opt/git/the_repo/the_repo.git/config. But once done the git push --force origin SHA:branch worked as required.
    – HankCa
    Commented Jul 18, 2015 at 13:35
  • 4
    The error message will have a line that starts with "error: failed to push some refs to <your repository>" where <your repository> is path ending in .git which is a directory containing a file called "config". This "config" file is where you can set denyNonFastforwards = false
    – emery
    Commented Mar 25, 2016 at 20:16
  • 1
    @emery's comment is valuable. Sometimes the folder on the server will have its origin set to something like /srv/git/repo.git. This is the config that has denyNonFastForwards set, not the application folder.
    – Elijah Lynn
    Commented Apr 18, 2017 at 15:58
  • 1
    @hsalimi If you don't have access to the server then you need to contact the server admin and have them temporarily turn it off so you can force push and then turn it back on. It is unlikely most are in a position to do this though. It may be more common in an internal environment with your own hosting team.
    – Elijah Lynn
    Commented Apr 18, 2017 at 16:11
  • 2
    This is initially frustrating, but the beauty of it is: the remote is totally protected by default, and if you as the developer are intentionally and correctly doing rebases, you can override this config to allow the dangerous behavior. Rebasing is something every git user should know how to do - and know when not to do. doc1 doc2
    – moodboom
    Commented Dec 1, 2017 at 13:16
17

The remote doesn't allow non-fast-forwards.

Your best option is to git revert all of the commits that shouldn't be there and be more careful in future.

git revert [commit] will create a new commit that undoes whatever [commit] did.

Improve this answer
2
  • It was some settings on the remote repository that blocked all non-fast-forward changes.
    – samwell
    Commented May 11, 2012 at 1:39
  • If you do this and need to reapply commits the history isn't removed in a revert just the code changes, and you won't be able to cherry pick the commits or merge
    – mtpultz
    Commented Jul 11, 2018 at 20:22
13

Try using the -f flag and putting it after the remote branch name.

git push origin master -f

Improve this answer
1
  • 3
    Nope, that didn't work either. I also tried git push -f origin master and same result. Both times I tried it I got the second version of the error message.
    – samwell
    Commented May 11, 2012 at 1:20
13

Steps to permanently enable force push in the following style

git push -f myrepo my-branch

Edit the file named "config" in the folder ending in ".git" on your remote repository

In git's command-line output from the failed push, look for the line that says something like:

error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://[email protected]/srv/git/myrepo.git

then

ssh [email protected]
cd /srv/git/myrepo.git
vi config

Set "denyNonFastforwards" to false

In "config", set 

[receive]
        denyNonFastforwards = false

Now you can push from your local machine with -f

git push -f myrepo my-branch
Improve this answer
5
  • How to do this without access to SSH to bare git repo?
    – Vladimir Vukanac
    Commented Jun 28, 2016 at 13:44
  • Maybe use the git revert command as richo suggests? If you back up the current state of the repo first, you can still merge your code in moving forward.
    – emery
    Commented Jun 29, 2016 at 7:42
  • git revert is kind of complicated when you have merges. To be more complicated my case has 3 merge, of which one is with very old ~20 commit diverged from develop, 2nd is kind of merge from master - ugly as hell.
    – Vladimir Vukanac
    Commented Jun 29, 2016 at 22:15
  • 1
    Maybe the solution is to reset to desired state, backup (stash), pull again, and apply backup (stash).
    – Vladimir Vukanac
    Commented Jun 29, 2016 at 22:19
  • 1
    mrW you can still merge the code base you want on top of a reverted/pulled code base
    – emery
    Commented Jun 30, 2016 at 15:41
3

The best way around this is to delete the remote branch and re-send it:

git push origin master --delete
git push origin master
Improve this answer
1
  • the first command will fail with ! [remote rejected] master (deletion of the current branch prohibited)
    – raven
    Commented Jan 27, 2023 at 9:49
2

You're not allowed to do git push that is not fast-forward.

  1. If the remote is GitHub, go to https://github.com/$USER/$REPO/settings/branches and un-protect the branch in question.

    enter image description here

    You have to be admin of the repo to do that.

  2. If the remote is your own git server, run git config receive.denynonfastforwards false there.

Improve this answer
1
  • Be aware that for Git Hub Enterprise instances, pushes to the default branch (usually "master") can be disabled at the instance-level. This means that even if "master" is not protected, and even if you are a site-admin, you will not be able to do force-pushes to the default branch. Assuming you have permissions, you can temporarily get around this by switching the default branch to something else, doing your force-push, and then switching back.
    – Christopher Hunter
    Commented Nov 8, 2017 at 21:06
1

For me, @svick 's hint pointed in the right direction. Since the git server I wanted to modify is actually my box, I logged into it and did a git config --global receive.denynonfastforwards false to change all repos to accept a forced non-ff push. Didn't work out of the box. What I found was that in the config there already was receive.denynonfastforwards=true set, and it couldn't be erased with git config --global --unset receive.denynonfastforwards. Doing the edit in the repo manually (vi config) worked, though.

Improve this answer
0

The problem occurs as the current branch isn't configured properly for the PULL. First check whether the upstream branch is properly configured for the pull using - git remote show origin. You can find it under the section - Local branches configured for 'git pull':. If not, configure it using:

git config branch.MYBRANCH.merge refs/heads/MYBRANCH

Give appropriate branch name for the place holder - MYBRANCH

Improve this answer
0
0

I'm using this group of commands to reset my remote repo, this will re-initialize your local repo and relink with your remote repo then force push the updates.

I think this way won't work in your case, but may be useful for someone else

go to the source folder then run the commands : note that https://github.com/*.git is your remote repo link

git init
git remote add origin https://github.com/*.git
git add .
git commit -m "initial commit"
git push origin master -f
git push --set-upstream origin master

**Note: this will clear all your git history on your master branch**

Improve this answer
0

I solved by removing the master branch from protected and also default which is just over proted branch rules in setting of a repository.

Improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.