How do you remove an invalid remote branch reference from Git?

user_64313 0
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In my current repo I have the following output:

$ git branch -a
* master
  remotes/origin/master
  remotes/public/master

I want to delete remotes/public/master from the branch list:

$ git branch -d remotes/public/master
error: branch 'remotes/public/master' not found.

Also, the output of git remote is strange, since it does not list public:

$ git remote show 
origin

How can I delete 'remotes/public/master' from the branch list?

Update, tried the git push command:

$ git push public :master
fatal: 'public' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
remote-branch branch git
13 Answers

You might be needing a cleanup:

git gc --prune=now

or you might be needing a prune:

git remote prune public

prune

Deletes all stale tracking branches under <name>. These stale branches have already been removed from the remote repository referenced by <name>, but are still locally available in "remotes/<name>".

With --dry-run option, report what branches will be pruned, but do no actually prune them.

However, it appears these should have been cleaned up earlier with 

git remote rm public

rm

Remove the remote named <name>. All remote tracking branches and configuration settings for the remote are removed.

So it might be you hand-edited your config file and this did not occur, or you have privilege problems.

Maybe run that again and see what happens.

Advice Context

If you take a look in the revision logs, you'll note I suggested more "correct" techniques, which for whatever reason didn't want to work on their repository.

I suspected the OP had done something that left their tree in an inconsistent state that caused it to behave a bit strangely, and git gc was required to fix up the left behind cruft.

Usually git branch -rd origin/badbranch is sufficient for nuking a local tracking branch , or git push origin :badbranch for nuking a remote branch, and usually you will never need to call git gc

Kent_Fredric_156140 
git push public :master

This would delete the remote branch named master as Kent Fredric has pointed out.

To list remote-tracking branches:

git branch -r

To delete a remote-tracking branch:

git branch -rd public/master
user_663530

The accepted answer didn't work for me when the ref was packed. This does however:

$ git remote add public http://anything.com/bogus.git
$ git remote rm public
user_2477480

Not sure how I got into the mess, but my error message was slightly different:

> git remote
> git branch
  warning: ignoring broken ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
  * main
>

But I was able to fix it by slightly reinterpreting a fix from elsewhere on this page. By this I mean I substituted the keyword HEAD for the branch name in <remote>/<branch>. None of the other suggestions people mentioned had worked (gc, prune, etc.) so I was running out of ideas and hoping for the best. Anyway, it worked like a charm:

> git remote
> git branch -rd origin/HEAD
  Deleted remote-tracking branch origin/HEAD (was refs/remotes/origin/main).

> git branch
  * main
>
user_1475110

I tried everything here and nothing worked. If all else fails, remove the offending branches from the text file '.git/packed-refs', then remove the offending branches from '.git\refs\remotes\origin<branchName>'

user_13589240
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