Forked repo's commits are ahead of the base repo.

[Kalaiselvi84]

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Hi Team,

I have a forked repo and this is the base repo.

I am trying to sync my fork with base repo through GUI/CLI. Both logs are suggesting to use the pull request but there are 0 files changed. When I click on Update Branch in Github, the new commits are getting added to the ahead of commits list and if I click on Discard x commits it says protected branch 'main' check failed: Changes must be made through a pull request. Cannot force-push to this branch.

Please let me know how to resolve this issue.

Thanks!

[airtower-luna]

The error message sounds like you have a branch protection rule for the main branch in your fork. You'll need to disable that if you want to overwrite it with the upstream version.

[Kalaiselvi84]

I have disabled the branch protection for the main branch and ran following commands,

$ git fetch upstream
$ git checkout main
$ git merge upstream/main

$ git push origin main
Enumerating objects: 1, done.
Counting objects: 100% (1/1), done.
Writing objects: 100% (1/1), 244 bytes | 244.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 1 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
To https://github.com/Kalaiselvi84/agones.git
065359748..837275954 main -> main

If you see in my fork one more commit got added into the ahead of commits list. Please share me the correct commands to fix this issue.

[airtower-luna]

It seems like you're merging with merge commits. If you want the main branch in your fork to be the same as upstream you'll have to reset it.

Warning: That reset will permanently discard any commits you have added to your main branch both locally and in your fork on GitHub (unless you also have them on other branches). Don't do it if that's not what you want, and I highly recommend to make sure your working tree is clean first to avoid any confusion. ⚠️

git checkout main
git reset --soft upstream/main
git push --force origin

Two more notes:

1. git reset --soft resets only the current branch, not your index or working tree. You might see a lot of changed files, or not, depending on how different the branch is after. If you want to overwrite your working tree and index too, use --hard (do that only if you're sure – there's no way to recover uncommitted changes). ⚠️
2. When you want to update your main branch in the future, make sure to do fast-forward merges only, otherwise you'll end up with merge commits again.

[Kalaiselvi84]

$ git checkout main
Already on 'main'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.
$ git reset --soft upstream/main
$ git push --force origin
Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: error: GH006: Protected branch update failed for refs/heads/main.
remote: error: Cannot force-push to this branch
To https://github.com/Kalaiselvi84/agones.git
 ! [remote rejected]     main -> main (protected branch hook declined)
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/Kalaiselvi84/agones.git'

but I have removed all the branch protection in main branch in my forked repo - https://screenshot.googleplex.com/8ZeRPvvyqyudaLf

[airtower-luna]

GitHub seems to think otherwise. Mind that there currently are branch protection rules and (separately!) repository rules in beta. 😅

Also I can's see that screenshot it leads to something that might be a Google login thing, but looks a bit suspicious.

[Kalaiselvi84]

I tried with --hard as well

$ git reset --hard upstream/main
HEAD is now at ee0062012 Potential fix for TestAllocatorAllocate* flakiness (#3232)
$ git push --force origin
Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: error: GH006: Protected branch update failed for refs/heads/main.
remote: error: Cannot force-push to this branch
To https://github.com/Kalaiselvi84/agones.git
 ! [remote rejected]     main -> main (protected branch hook declined)
error: failed to push some refs to 'https://github.com/Kalaiselvi84/agones.git'

[airtower-luna]

That still is a branch protection rule, you'd need to use the "delete" button on this screen:

Whether you do a soft or hard reset changes only how your local data is treated, it doesn't matter for pushing.

[Kalaiselvi84]

It worked, thanks a ton!

[nuri-yoo]

To quickly check whether a forked repo is ahead or behind the base, I built branch-watch. bw forks shows ahead/behind commit counts for all your forks vs. upstream at a glance from the terminal.