Generally the error messages from git are fairly helpful, and often guide you to a resolution. Occasionally, they’re not.

I ran across this little problem today during a rebase. When a conflict occurs during a rebase, you are asked to resolve it manually and then use git rebase --continue .

If you decide during the conflict resolution to scrap the checked out branch changes, and just keep the file as-is from the other branch, you may get a little confused.

$ git rebase otherbranch First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it... Applying: This change will create a conflict during rebase Using index info to reconstruct a base tree... Falling back to patching base and 3-way merge... Auto-merging foo.txt CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in foo.txt Failed to merge in the changes. Patch failed at 0001 Commit message from checked out branch which creates conflict When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue". If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip". To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

Ok, have a look at the conflict.

$ cat foo.txt <<<<<<< HEAD Foo ======= Bar > >>>>>> Commit message from checked out branch which creates conflict

Here, HEAD is the other branch version, not the one that is checked out.

I decide I want to keep the ‘otherbranch’ version and drop all of the changes I’ve made on the checked out branch

$ echo "Foo" > foo.txt $ git rebase --continue You must edit all merge conflicts and then mark them as resolved using git add

Ok, so I need to tell git the conflict is resolved, makes sense.

$ git add foo.txt $ git rebase --continue Applying: This change will create a conflict during rebase No changes - did you forget to use 'git add'? When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue". If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip". To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

Huh?!? No, I didn’t forget to use git add , I did it … like … 2 seconds ago!

Turns out that because there is no change from the patch git suspects something has gone wrong. Git expects a patch to have been applied, but the file has remained unchanged.

The error message is not very intuitive, but it does contain the answer. We just need to tell rebase to skip this patch. It’s also not necessary to fix the conflict markers in the file. You will end up with the file version from the branch you are rebasing on.