'git apply' failed with code 128:'fatal: Unable to create '/Users/.../.git/index.lock': Permission denied '

[Jedidiah Rex]

Running Sourcetree 2.0.3 on Mac OSX 10.10.1 and attempting to commit a change. When I click the Stage hunk button I receive the error:

'git apply' failed with code 128:'fatal: Unable to create '/Users/.../.git/index.lock': Permission denied'

I cannot commit changes.

I am able to do this through Terminal if a add sudo. My guess it is a permissions thing somewher, but I cannot figure it out.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Seth · Accepted solution]

Check the ownership of the .git folder. It should be writable by your user. If that is not the problem, check whether the index.lock file exists, and you may need to delete the lock file manually, but only if you're sure git isn't performing any operations (shut down sourcetree to avoid colliding with automatic fetches).

[Jedidiah Rex]

Thank you, Seth.

That allowed me to attempt the commit. When I did I received a message regarding permissions being denied to COMMIT_EDITMSG.

I changed that in Terminal and then received this error:

git -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false -c credential.helper=sourcetree commit -q -F /var/folders/13/7_nt5m7x6zv4v0f5cftwvry40000gp/T/SourceTreeTemp.epR05C 

error: insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database .git/objects

fatal: failed to write commit object

Completed with errors, see above

When I look at these items in terminal they are all owned by root, but not my user. Why is this? Can I change all he ownership under .git to my user with 'chown -R'?

[Seth]

I think that should work, but my knowledge is based on linux, not Mac, so you may want to get a second opinion before attempting that. If everything is owned by root, it's likely that the command you used to create them (git clone?) was executed as root (probably via sudo, based on reference to that in your question). In practice, I would avoid using the "sudo" command in your user's directory for any operation other than changing ownership to your user.

[Jedidiah Rex]

Thanks Seth. 

I did try this and it worked. Thanks for the warning about sudo.

Jedidiah

[Seth]

Glad to help. If you hit the checkbox by my answer, that will highlight it as the "correct" answer.