[Fixed] Another git process seems to be running in this repository git in 6 ways

1. Overview

In this article, We'll learn how to fix the git error "Another git process seems to be running in this repository" in windows and mac operating systems.

When you are a beginner or working a git project, you get this type of error.

This error is saying git commands are locked by another git process for the current git application. Somewhere you are running two git commands at the same time. Simultaneous execution of git commands lead to error - Another git process seems to be running in this repository.

Complete error

Another git process seems to be running in this repository e.g. an editor opened by 'git commit'. Please make sure all processes are terminated then try again. If it still fails, a git process may have crashed in this repository earlier: remove the file manually to continue.

This error can be solved in many ways.

Let us look at the solutions one by one.

Other git errors

fatal: not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git 

Git - remote: Repository not found in 9 ways (Windows and Mac)

Git error: failed to push some refs to in 5 ways

2. Fix 1 - Another git process seems to be running in this repository

In the project home directory when you do ls -a command, you can see the .git folder.

Try deleting the index.lock file in your.git directory, as shown in the example below.

rm -f .git/index.lock

Such types of issues typically arise when you attempt to run two git commands at the same time; for example, one from the command prompt and another from an IDE.

3. Fix 2 - Another git process seems to be running in this repository

In 90% of cases, solution 1 should work.

 

If fix 1 did not work for you then you should try out this command.

Delete COMMIT_EDITMSG file from .git directory which is in the project root folder.

rm .git/COMMIT_EDITMSG

4. Fix 3 - Another git process seems to be running in this repository

The third fix is to delete the lock file of the current working branch.

Syntax

rm .git/refs/heads/[your-branch-name].lock

Here you have to notice that the branch name has to be changed to your branch name as below.

$ ls -la .git/refs/heads/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x  4 javaprogramto  staff  128 Nov 30 14:06 .
drwxr-xr-x  5 javaprogramto  staff  160 Apr 18  2020 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 javaprogramto  staff   41 Nov 30 14:06 develop
-rw-r--r--  1 javaprogramto  staff   41 Apr 18  2020 develop.lock
-rw-r--r--  1 javaprogramto  staff   41 Apr 18  2020 master
$rm .git/refs/heads/develop.lock
$

5 Fix 4 - Another git process seems to be running in this repository

It is similar to the previous methods, but in this case, we must remove the lock files from multiple locations.

Regular command

.git/refs/heads/<branch_name>.lock

To remove all *.lock from the .git folder

The below command removes all locks in single go.

find -name "*.lock" -exec xargs rm {} \;

6 Windows Fix 5 - Another git process seems to be running in this repository

If you are a Windows user, you will receive an error message stating that the command 'rm' is not recognised as an internal or external command. This is due to the fact that rm is a Linux command. As a result, in Windows, you can use the following command to delete the index.lock file contained within .git folder from git repository 

del -f .git/index.lock

From PowerShell

rm -Force .git/index.lock

7 CocoaPods Fix 6 - Another git process seems to be running in this repository

when working on swift or objective-c ios projects, you need CocoaPods dependency.

If you are using CocoaPods and you accidentally botched an update or installation (by killing it manually, for example), you can try the following steps.

1) Deleting the index.lock file (located in the.git/index.lock directory).

2) Delete your Podfile.lock file from your computer.

3) Create a new pod update

4) Retry the git command that was previously unsuccessful

8. Conclusion

In this article, we have seen how we fixed the git error "Another git process seems to be running in this repository" on windows PowerShell, cocoaPods and mac os.

How to delete local branch from git project?