Unable to clone a repository with specific tag and depth on Windows

Summary

Unable to clone repository with specific tag and depth on Windows using the following command:

Environment

Operating System: Windows

Diagnosis

Check the following:

• The version of Bitbucket and supported platforms page for compatibility with Git. If the Git versions are same as what is listed in the supported platforms page the issue persists, then update them to the latest available Git versions.

• If there's proxy in place

• If the clone command works without the tag and depth option

• If the issue occurs with both HTTP and SSH url

• If the issue is specific to a few users and system only.

• Check for errors in Git debug logs and Bitbucket logs.

You would see the following logs from the Git trace:

• Run the git status command and retry the checkout with git checkout -f HEAD.

• Run the above command while running Process Monitor.

  Process Monitor can be downloaded from Process Monitor - Windows Sysinternals - Microsoft Docs. It doesn't require installation, just extracting the zip is enough.

  1. Run the .exe

  2. The tool will start capturing events automatically

  3. Run git checkout -f HEAD, wait for it to fail

  4. Once it's failed, return to Process Monitor, press CTRL+E to stop capturing events

  5. Save the file from Process Monitor as PML file

• After the failed checkout following the clone, if running git checkout -F HEAD works fine and all the expected data is there, so the question is why the checkout as part of the clone fails.

• As the issue is reported with git clone --branch <branch-name> --depth 1 <https repository clone URL>, narrow it down by answering following questions -

  1. Is it failing because of --depth? For this, check output of following commands -

     1 2 git clone --branch <branch> <https repository clone URL> git clone --branch <branch> --single-branch <https repository clone URL>

  2. Does the error happen because of server or it's happening locally. For this, try the following commands -

     1 2 3 git clone <https repository clone URL> cd <repository folder> git checkout <branch>

  3. Is LFS of .dll files the reason for failure? For this, perform following steps -

  • Clone the repo.

  • Checkout a new branch named <some-test-branch>

  • Remove all DLL files in this branch and make a local commit.

  • Push this new branch to upstream.

  • cd into separate directory and run git clone --branch <some-test-branch> --depth 1 <https repository clone URL> and see if it passes.

Errors from the Bitbucket server side for this repository:

Cause

In most cases the cause of the issue is incorrect version of Git and Git LFS in use.

Solution

• Upgrade the Git client and server version to the latest available version.

• Upgrade the Git LFS version to the latest available version.