git pull fails updating ORIG_HEAD on Windows in 2.54.0.windows.1

[joliuba]

Existing issues matching what you're seeing

• I was not able to find an open or closed issue matching what I'm seeing

Git for Windows version

git version 2.54.0.windows.1
cpu: x86_64
built from commit: 2b8a3ab140826ac423c2845ef81d4c6ac4f7bf3c
sizeof-long: 4
sizeof-size_t: 8
shell-path: D:/git-sdk-64-build-installers/usr/bin/sh
rust: disabled
feature: fsmonitor--daemon
gettext: enabled
libcurl: 8.19.0
OpenSSL: OpenSSL 3.5.6 7 Apr 2026
zlib: 1.3.2
SHA-1: SHA1_DC
SHA-256: SHA256_BLK
default-ref-format: files
default-hash: sha1

Windows version

Windows 11

Windows CPU architecture

x86_64 (64-bit)

Additional Windows version information

Microsoft Windows [Versión 10.0.26200.8457]

Options set during installation

Editor Option: VIM
Custom Editor Path:
Default Branch Option:
Path Option: Cmd
SSH Option: OpenSSH
Tortoise Option: false
CURL Option: OpenSSL
CRLF Option: CRLFAlways
Bash Terminal Option: MinTTY
Git Pull Behavior Option: Merge
Use Credential Manager: Enabled
Performance Tweaks FSCache: Enabled
Enable Symlinks: Disabled
Enable FSMonitor: Disabled

Other interesting things

git fsck --full reports a healthy repository. git fetch origin succeeds. git push --dry-run origin master succeeds. git update-ref ORIG_HEAD HEAD fails with the same error. The persistent reproduction happened without a stale ORIG_HEAD.lock present. The issue also breaks VS Code Sync Changes.

Terminal/shell

PowerShell 5.1 from VS Code

Commands that trigger the issue

git pull --ff-only origin master


Also reproducible with:


git update-ref ORIG_HEAD HEAD

Expected behaviour

git pull --ff-only origin master should succeed or report Already up to date. when there is nothing to merge. Updating ORIG_HEAD should not fail in this no-op or ahead-only case.

Actual behaviour

Git fails with:

fatal: update_ref failed for ref 'ORIG_HEAD': couldn't set 'ORIG_HEAD'

This also breaks VS Code Sync Changes because the pull step fails. FETCH_HEAD can be equal to or behind local HEAD, so there is no real merge/update work to do, yet the command still aborts on ORIG_HEAD.

Repository

No response