enableGitInfo "failed to load Git data"

support
1

Hello all,

To get portable last modified dates for my pages, I set enableGitInfo to true in my configuration.

My whole site project is managed via git. However, when starting hugo or hugo server, I get the following error message:

Start building sites … 
hugo v0.157.0-7747abbb316b03c8f353fd3be62d5011fa883ee6 linux/amd64 BuildDate=2026-02-25T16:38:33Z VendorInfo=gohugoio

Built in 5 ms
ERROR error building site: assemble: failed to create page from pageMetaSource : "<pathy_mc_pathface>/content/_index.md:1:1": failed to load Git data: fatal: unable to read tree (600eff68038faba92f7ee6314b1ee0dcca2692c1)

The file in question is managed via git, and I can retrieve its last modified date via git:

$ git log -1  _index.md
commit d3333212a3a3c2bfc17e8e56b23760fa861a9c2c
Author: Dragan Espenschied <me@my.mail>
Date:   Fri Mar 20 14:09:21 2026 +0100

    manual summary for home page (bad summary)

I do not know what’s wrong here. Anybody have an idea?

Bests,
Dragan

2

What is the result of each command?

git version
git cat-file -t 600eff68038faba92f7ee6314b1ee0dcca2692c1
git fsck --missing      
git rev-parse --is-shallow-repository
3 
$ git version
git version 2.53.0
$ git cat-file -t 600eff68038faba92f7ee6314b1ee0dcca2692c1
fatal: git cat-file: could not get object info
$ git fsck
Checking ref database: 100% (1/1), done.
Checking object directories: 100% (256/256), done.
error: 600eff68038faba92f7ee6314b1ee0dcca2692c1: invalid sha1 pointer in cache-tree of .git/index
broken link from    tree 219a840c9359cfa53431cb6b2426427917c3c332
              to    tree 600eff68038faba92f7ee6314b1ee0dcca2692c1
missing tree 600eff68038faba92f7ee6314b1ee0dcca2692c1
dangling blob 6047b2522fadf5246f997dedda54646154bc5b89
$ git rev-parse --is-shallow-repository
false

Thank you so much @jmooring!

It looks like indeed the repo is corrupted. :frowning_face_with_open_mouth: Is there anything I could do to repair it?

PS: git fsck --missing returned error: unknown option `missing’ + a list of allowed options. The command was useful without this constraint though

4

You could try git fetch --all, but I’d probably do a fresh clone.

5

The above assumes your remote is up-to-date.

6

Thank you @jmooring, a full fresh close from the remote solved the issue. I was lucky enough for the remote to be fully intact. :sweat_smile: The git commands you mentioned will also help me in the future to track down similar issues. :folded_hands: