Sourcetree error fatal: Unable to write new index file

[itsricky]

Hi there

I have recently downloaded and started using Sourcetree - love it.

One repo and set of pushes to my SamG bucket was fine, great.

Now I am trying to add files to a new commit using the 'everguide-newsletter-creator' repo, and keep getting this error:

fatal: Unable to write new index file

Why is this happening on my mac? I have ample disk and memory space available?

Thanks.

[stevestreeting · Accepted solution]

This is usually a permissions problem or a file locking problem. I'd check that you have full access to the entire folder and all of its subdirs (especially the .git hidden folder), and that nothing else could be holding persistent locks on the file system somehow (ultimately a reboot should make sure this isn't the case). Otherwise, there are a few ideas here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3813962/git-problem-fatal-unable-to-write-new-index-file

[itsricky]

HI Steven - thanks for this.

Your're right - the files were being stored on a Mac Mini Lion Server - thus SourceTree was unable to reset the owner/group permissions on the files, as I've seen it do locally on my mac.

So - hopefully a feature for the future, but at this time I just switched the Repo over to drop box, and that allowed me to alter the permissions.

Would have saved hours had the command line errors been a little more descriptive!

Not your fault thought :)

Thanks