Error: fatal loose object ### (stored in .git/objects/.... is corrupt)

Question

I just fired up gitk as usual but this time I received a fatal error message:

fatal: loose object 58008283f6ad152ac44a1b6da961795ababe5b93 (stored in .git/objects/58/008283f6ad152ac44a1b6da961795ababe5b93) is corrupt
fatal: loose object 58008283f6ad152ac44a1b6da961795ababe5b93 (stored in .git/objects/58/008283f6ad152ac44a1b6da961795ababe5b93) is corrupt
    while executing
"close $gdtf"
    (procedure "gettreediffline" line 36)
    invoked from within
"gettreediffline file1071e148 58008283f6ad152ac44a1b6da961795ababe5b93"
    ("eval" body line 1)
    invoked from within
"eval $script"
    (procedure "dorunq" line 11)
    invoked from within
"dorunq"
    ("after" script)

I clicked OK on the error message box, exited gitk, then started gitk again -- this time it came up without any errors (just as usual).

What does this error mean and why did I receive it?

Should I start worrying about the integrity of my repository? (at this point still local, in a .git subdirectory)

UPDATE: I just ran git fsck as suggested below and I got:

git fsck
dangling blob 6302f0a93a8d793b473e1a1976f221827b595ed7
dangling blob 5246a9d7408b1d5d01e9c471a67c1f0866f0d626
dangling blob ec08d18657f37e5bbdbebc7dc25615037b532463
dangling blob 8b69b97bdc45f3c86405f67a5f396d122408ad64
dangling blob aa39e78673ec3f2cb575798be1d2b4555c637475

What does "dangling blob" mean?
How could this have happened?
Is there a way to fix this?

sound like a good opportunity to run `git fsck` [link](http://book.git-scm.com/4_maintaining_git.html) — Fredrik Pihl, Jul 26 '11 at 17:25
@Fredrik Thanks for this tip. I didn't know about `git fsck` until now. I just ran it and the results seem to point to a problem (or more). See update in my OP. What do I do now? — WinWin, Jul 26 '11 at 17:33
@WinWin the dangling blobs are not necessarily an issue. They just state that you have blobs without anything pointing to them. [This may help](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4254389/git-corrupt-loose-object) — Andy, Jul 26 '11 at 17:54
@Andy I just did `git show` on one of the objects and received 56,491 lines of text report... seems like a lose-lose situation LOL (I thought `git` would save me time). How do I decipher this? — WinWin, Jul 26 '11 at 18:21
@Andy No. only pushed it once, a while ago (mainly for learning, I don't need to share it yet). — WinWin, Jul 26 '11 at 18:28
The contents of the object are junk? or are they something that is in your tree? — Andy, Jul 26 '11 at 18:30
Actually if the error doesn't show up anymore, it could have just been some corruption in memory. If `git fsck` doesn't return any errors, I would guess that is what happened. And make a backup of your repo:) — Andy, Jul 26 '11 at 18:35

score 3 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:23

Since git fsck is clean and you don't see the error anymore, I would venture to guess that there was some corruption in memory.

I know you said that you only have been working locally and don't want to share, but it is still a good idea to have a backup that is at least on a different disk and preferably a different physical location. If you don't mind your project being open source you can use github or free.

Links on backing up a git repo

Error: fatal loose object ### (stored in .git/objects/.... is corrupt)

1 Answers1