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Posted by hum4n01d
hum4n01d
25,493 Points

Git init failed

I tried to run git init in my terminal within a folder and I got this error message:

$ git init
error: Malformed value for push.default: origin
error: Must be one of nothing, matching, simple, upstream or current.
fatal: bad config variable ‘push.default’ in file ‘/Users/Me/.gitconfig' at line 9
$

Not sure what’s going on. Thanks!

2 Answers

Nate Meyer
Nate Meyer
3,887 Points

The error is actually saying exactly what the problem is:

fatal: bad config variable ‘push.default’ in file '/Users/Me/.gitconfig' at line 9

It's the .gitconfig file in your home directory.

error: Malformed value for push.default: origin error: Must be one of nothing, matching, simple, upstream or current.

You have "origin" set for push.default and the only valid values are "nothing, matching, simple, upstream or current."

hum4n01d
hum4n01d
25,493 Points

Nate Meyer

Do you mean Users/Me?

Also, which of the options for default are default? That sounds funny :D

Nate Meyer
Nate Meyer
3,887 Points

64yes on Treehouse -- yep, /Users/Me/.gitconfig. Mine is set to simple which is probably the default since I haven't intentionally changed it.

hum4n01d
hum4n01d
25,493 Points

Ok, that’s what I got from stackoverflow. :)

James Gill
PLUS
James Gill
Courses Plus Student 34,936 Points
James Gill
James Gill
Courses Plus Student 34,936 Points

It's likely caused by having two different versions of Git installed. It's a known issue.

Often, this will fix the issue:

git config --global push.default matching
hum4n01d
hum4n01d
25,493 Points

I think I just accidentally changed a setting, thank though