Hi,
Since the I updated to 2013-10-24 git annex has corrupted itself twice on my setup. I'm not claiming causality here and thus I haven't filled it as a bug (probably the mistake is mine).
I use three laptops and one remote ssh server. The motherboard on laptop T seems to have broken and I haven't fixed it yet. I have disabled sync to T on the webapp dashboard.
First, one computer, called W, broke on Friday. I got the dreaded serious problem screen. git fsck reported lots of missing blobs and tree problem, though my data seemed OK. I git cloned the repo from computer X. Now, last night both X and W reported the same problem (log below). W recovered itself somehow, but X is now in a cycle of re-adding all files in the repo and the posting the below error that has to do with computer T (IP ending with 107).
I would appreciate hints on why this suddenly started happen. Computer T has been out of sync for almost 14 days (since the 24th of October I think).
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/synced/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/synced/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/2ed58ecf-8e8c-44b8-ad34-d42ddfb35315/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/2ed58ecf-8e8c-44b8-ad34-d42ddfb35315/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/synced/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/remotes/192.168.1.107_annex/synced/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/2ed58ecf-8e8c-44b8-ad34-d42ddfb35315/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/2ed58ecf-8e8c-44b8-ad34-d42ddfb35315/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/cmFzbXVzQGNvZGVyb2xsZXJzLmNvbQ==/master does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/git-annex does not point to a valid object!
error: refs/synced/f54b8200-8ec1-43d2-8710-b73ec118addc/master does not point to a valid object!
error: invalid object 100644 1ca66de3cdd9c79cde26a7555cf3b8d26d0e371d for '000/147/SHA256E-s347--1ab8084bf9ae06407ce0a7260a83638ea6e9a028dc59b4815fd60aec61dbd747.txt.log.log'
fatal: git-write-tree: error building trees
TransferScanner crashed: failed to read sha from git write-tree
[2013-11-04 09:45:41 CET] TransferScanner: warning TransferScanner crashed: failed to read sha from git write-tree
This was the first search result when I googled the error message, I'm not sure what has happened (or if it is a problem since I don't change my files that often).
git-annex version: 4.20131101
Also running git annex with one ssh remote ( laptop1 & laptop2 synching through a ssh remote server ).
Got a bunch of error: refs/synced/dbb70cea-4b83-416f-93af-e59082c4d633/git-annex does not point to a valid object! error: refs/synced/dbb70cea-4b83-416f-93af-e59082c4d633/master does not point to a valid object! error: refs/synced/dbb70cea-4b83-416f-93af-e59082c4d633/git-annex does not point to a valid object! error: refs/synced/dbb70cea-4b83-416f-93af-e59082c4d633/master does not point to a valid object! when I tried a manual git annex sync, and noticed that I had a bunch of those in the log in the webapp as well...
The gui doesn't show that anything is wrong, and looking at the log it seems that things are atleast uploading
I have been getting this too. Here is what I have done to fix it:
recovering from a corrupt git repository
I did a change of one of the files and that totally broke all other repositories, git fsck reports a lot of missing trees (I'm not sure if it is normal), and git annex fsck started reporting invalid object for another file for some reason, also got a (git annex repair still reports everything is fine though.)
I tried following those instructions but I don't think I had a good repository, git annex repair reported everything was ok but git fsck said a lot of trees where missing and it stopped updating. I noticed I was running different git version (git version 1.7.9.5 on the server and git version 1.8.4.2 on one of the clients), so maybe that was part of the reason.
I couldn't find out what remote dbb70cea-4b83-416f-93af-e59082c4d633 was supposed to be either, it wasn't any of the active ones and it didn't show up with git annex status either (I've lost a few repositories when I reinstalled my computer).
I ended up recreating the repository (by copying the raw files) from what I think is the most recent version from one of my computers and hope that it was a error that happened due to upgrades.
git-annex repaircan be run in the repository to recover from many problems like this, and it's getting better all the time.