Can't fetch with `fetch-tags` when triggered by tag

[Molkree]

Getting the following error: Error: fatal: Cannot fetch both <sha> and refs/tags/<tag> to refs/tags/<tag>

Example workflow:

name: Release

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  # Triggers the workflow on tag events
  push:
    tags: '*'

jobs:
  release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 250
          fetch-tags: true

Example of a failing run.

Raw log

2023-09-06T20:54:11.5281780Z Requested labels: ubuntu-latest
2023-09-06T20:54:11.5282085Z Job defined at: Molkree/github_actions/.github/workflows/workflow.yml@refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:11.5282200Z Waiting for a runner to pick up this job...
2023-09-06T20:54:12.2788574Z Job is waiting for a hosted runner to come online.
2023-09-06T20:54:15.6896729Z Job is about to start running on the hosted runner: GitHub Actions 2 (hosted)
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8444082Z Current runner version: '2.308.0'
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8473502Z ##[group]Operating System
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8474111Z Ubuntu
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8474513Z 22.04.3
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8474765Z LTS
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8475076Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8475431Z ##[group]Runner Image
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8475752Z Image: ubuntu-22.04
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8476128Z Version: 20230821.1.0
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8476673Z Included Software: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/ubuntu22/20230821.1/images/linux/Ubuntu2204-Readme.md
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8477311Z Image Release: https://github.com/actions/runner-images/releases/tag/ubuntu22%2F20230821.1
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8477802Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8478168Z ##[group]Runner Image Provisioner
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8478513Z 2.0.266.1
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8478820Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8480162Z ##[group]GITHUB_TOKEN Permissions
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8480834Z Actions: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8481218Z Checks: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8481797Z Contents: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8482190Z Deployments: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8482577Z Discussions: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8482935Z Issues: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8483217Z Metadata: read
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8483553Z Packages: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8483914Z Pages: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8484212Z PullRequests: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8484605Z RepositoryProjects: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8484990Z SecurityEvents: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8485340Z Statuses: write
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8485656Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8489434Z Secret source: Actions
2023-09-06T20:54:17.8489965Z Prepare workflow directory
2023-09-06T20:54:17.9244286Z Prepare all required actions
2023-09-06T20:54:17.9441016Z Getting action download info
2023-09-06T20:54:18.1502062Z Download action repository 'actions/checkout@v4' (SHA:3df4ab11eba7bda6032a0b82a6bb43b11571feac)
2023-09-06T20:54:18.6047878Z Complete job name: release
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7039155Z ##[group]Run actions/checkout@v4
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7039717Z with:
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7040031Z   fetch-depth: 250
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7040298Z   fetch-tags: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7040608Z   repository: Molkree/github_actions
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7041197Z   token: ***
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7041482Z   ssh-strict: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7041770Z   persist-credentials: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7042069Z   clean: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7042378Z   sparse-checkout-cone-mode: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7042696Z   show-progress: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7042970Z   lfs: false
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7043230Z   submodules: false
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7043513Z   set-safe-directory: true
2023-09-06T20:54:18.7043798Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0017138Z Syncing repository: Molkree/github_actions
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0076797Z ##[group]Getting Git version info
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0077771Z Working directory is '/home/runner/work/github_actions/github_actions'
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0079224Z [command]/usr/bin/git version
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0091807Z git version 2.41.0
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0121375Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0207526Z Temporarily overriding HOME='/home/runner/work/_temp/2678c0f7-1146-4df1-ba64-9dafbaaf9b22' before making global git config changes
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0208204Z Adding repository directory to the temporary git global config as a safe directory
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0208921Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --global --add safe.directory /home/runner/work/github_actions/github_actions
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0265359Z Deleting the contents of '/home/runner/work/github_actions/github_actions'
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0266187Z ##[group]Initializing the repository
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0266618Z [command]/usr/bin/git init /home/runner/work/github_actions/github_actions
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0330716Z hint: Using 'master' as the name for the initial branch. This default branch name
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0334071Z hint: is subject to change. To configure the initial branch name to use in all
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0337832Z hint: of your new repositories, which will suppress this warning, call:
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0341189Z hint: 
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0344118Z hint: 	git config --global init.defaultBranch <name>
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0346914Z hint: 
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0349701Z hint: Names commonly chosen instead of 'master' are 'main', 'trunk' and
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0352666Z hint: 'development'. The just-created branch can be renamed via this command:
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0355422Z hint: 
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0358966Z hint: 	git branch -m <name>
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0434933Z Initialized empty Git repository in /home/runner/work/github_actions/github_actions/.git/
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0436097Z [command]/usr/bin/git remote add origin https://github.com/Molkree/github_actions
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0448271Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0449725Z ##[group]Disabling automatic garbage collection
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0474091Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local gc.auto 0
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0529491Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0530029Z ##[group]Setting up auth
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0530602Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local --name-only --get-regexp core\.sshCommand
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0557039Z [command]/usr/bin/git submodule foreach --recursive sh -c "git config --local --name-only --get-regexp 'core\.sshCommand' && git config --local --unset-all 'core.sshCommand' || :"
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0924414Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local --name-only --get-regexp http\.https\:\/\/github\.com\/\.extraheader
2023-09-06T20:54:19.0956478Z [command]/usr/bin/git submodule foreach --recursive sh -c "git config --local --name-only --get-regexp 'http\.https\:\/\/github\.com\/\.extraheader' && git config --local --unset-all 'http.https://github.com/.extraheader' || :"
2023-09-06T20:54:19.1182729Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local http.https://github.com/.extraheader AUTHORIZATION: basic ***
2023-09-06T20:54:19.1245799Z ##[endgroup]
2023-09-06T20:54:19.1246486Z ##[group]Fetching the repository
2023-09-06T20:54:19.1256140Z [command]/usr/bin/git -c protocol.version=2 fetch --prune --no-recurse-submodules --depth=250 origin +ec23d78ecbc48f9a867575b74a5416b78213d380:refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:19.3386207Z ##[error]fatal: Cannot fetch both ec23d78ecbc48f9a867575b74a5416b78213d380 and refs/tags/V1 to refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:19.3401260Z The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 128
2023-09-06T20:54:19.3401907Z Waiting 19 seconds before trying again
2023-09-06T20:54:38.3455042Z [command]/usr/bin/git -c protocol.version=2 fetch --prune --no-recurse-submodules --depth=250 origin +ec23d78ecbc48f9a867575b74a5416b78213d380:refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:38.4980618Z ##[error]fatal: Cannot fetch both ec23d78ecbc48f9a867575b74a5416b78213d380 and refs/tags/V1 to refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:38.5018376Z The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 128
2023-09-06T20:54:38.5019247Z Waiting 16 seconds before trying again
2023-09-06T20:54:54.5093632Z [command]/usr/bin/git -c protocol.version=2 fetch --prune --no-recurse-submodules --depth=250 origin +ec23d78ecbc48f9a867575b74a5416b78213d380:refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:54.6735953Z ##[error]fatal: Cannot fetch both ec23d78ecbc48f9a867575b74a5416b78213d380 and refs/tags/V1 to refs/tags/V1
2023-09-06T20:54:54.6833580Z ##[error]The process '/usr/bin/git' failed with exit code 128
2023-09-06T20:54:54.7213201Z Post job cleanup.
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8171576Z [command]/usr/bin/git version
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8204035Z git version 2.41.0
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8270408Z Temporarily overriding HOME='/home/runner/work/_temp/355ee677-37c5-4dd2-a63a-280e77b4a35e' before making global git config changes
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8271182Z Adding repository directory to the temporary git global config as a safe directory
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8271822Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --global --add safe.directory /home/runner/work/github_actions/github_actions
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8311274Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local --name-only --get-regexp core\.sshCommand
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8359349Z [command]/usr/bin/git submodule foreach --recursive sh -c "git config --local --name-only --get-regexp 'core\.sshCommand' && git config --local --unset-all 'core.sshCommand' || :"
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8627983Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local --name-only --get-regexp http\.https\:\/\/github\.com\/\.extraheader
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8648042Z http.https://github.com/.extraheader
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8659258Z [command]/usr/bin/git config --local --unset-all http.https://github.com/.extraheader
2023-09-06T20:54:54.8697155Z [command]/usr/bin/git submodule foreach --recursive sh -c "git config --local --name-only --get-regexp 'http\.https\:\/\/github\.com\/\.extraheader' && git config --local --unset-all 'http.https://github.com/.extraheader' || :"
2023-09-06T20:54:54.9259704Z Cleaning up orphan processes

What am I doing wrong here?

UPDATE March 2025: adding ref: ${{ github.ref }} to the step fixes this if you want just one branch.

        with:
          fetch-depth: 250
          fetch-tags: true
          ref: ${{ github.ref }}

[huxuan]

UPDATE: seems just removing the fetch-tags configuration works for me. Even with fetch-depth > 0, it will still detect the tag when the workflow is triggered by tags.

---

Same problem here: https://github.com/serious-scaffold/serious-scaffold-python/actions/runs/6142805118/job/16665155663

[dfeinstein-coremap]

When I run an action on a tag, I noticed that:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
   with:
      fetch-tags: true

Doesn't work and results in "Error: fatal: Cannot fetch both...". When I run this however:

- uses: actions/checkout@v4
   with:
     fetch-depth: 1
     fetch-tags: true

Does work. This seems like a bug because the default for fetch-depth is 1 so you would expect the first version to work too.

[sodevel]

For some reason the fetch-depth: 1 workaround does not work for me. After some painful try-and-error i reverted back to a manual tag fetching approach.

Looking at my build logs, it seems like the commit the tag is pointing to is fetched by its hash but stored under the ref of the tag. Since git sees that a tag is attached to this commit, it tries to fetch this as well and store it under the same ref. That is causing the conflict git complains about.

Right now, when i fetch the tags manually after checkout, i have to specify --force to overwrite the existing ref. This doesn't seem to break anything, git describe finds the tag and the working copy is intact.

[aghand0ur]

any update on this issue?

[ulidtko]

also hit this on actions/cache@v3, with: { fetch-depth: 1, fetch-tags: true }.

any update?

[onelshina]

did anyone find a work-around that works with actions/checkout@v4?

also running into this with actions/checkout@v4 , with: { fetch-depth: 1, fetch-tags: true } or with: { fetch-depth: 0, fetch-tags: true } or with: { fetch-depth: 1 } or with: { fetch-depth: 0 }

[ulidtko]

@oshina-gravity I worked around the issue by fetching my tag of interest manually from bash:

      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
        with:
          fetch-depth: 1
          #-- done manually in bash below, because https://github.com/actions/checkout/issues/1467
          #fetch-tags: true

      - name: Setup variables -- changelog from tag annotation message
        if: startsWith(github.ref, 'refs/tags/')
        run: |
          git fetch origin --deepen=1 +refs/tags/$TAG:refs/tags/$TAG
          # ...

This has also resolved another issue with actions/checkout for me, where fetch-tags would somehow not fetch tag annotation messages.

[asbjornu]

I'm a bit bewildered regarding how fetch-tags is supposed to work. I assumed that it was just a way for actions/checkout to do the following for me:

git fetch --tags

…which is a safe operation that should never fail. However, this does not seem to be the case at all. With the only provided documentation being:

 # Whether to fetch tags, even if fetch-depth > 0.
 # Default: false
 fetch-tags: ''

…what fetch-tags is supposed to be doing is a mystery. However, what fetch-tags actually does seems to be both wrong and unexpected since it fails spectacularly when the commit being checked out is tagged. This seems like a major design error and a bug to me. The feature should either:

1. Be much better documented and warnings should be given that it doesn't work with tagged commits.
2. Be fixed to do git fetch --tags as most people seem to expect that it should do already.
3. Be deprecated and replaced by an option that actually does git fetch --tags.

Until point 2 or 3 of the above is completed, I'll remove fetch-tags and will do git fetch --tags manually.

[ulidtko]

Hi @asbjornu, I agree with you. This is much more puzzling than it should be. Also, IMO the handling of #579 by GitHub was very unfortunate: a +43 −11 patch by @RobertWieczoreck was awaiting review for two years... :weary:

But just for sake of discussion: I can see responses that argue your points:

1. We always have the fallback of doing git fetch --tags in bash. Literally the one-liner:

         - run: git fetch --tags
   

   So it's a somewhat silly goal to set for actions/checkout... If the action can improve on the default behavior in whatever way, it should totally do it; expecting it to exactly replicate git fetch --tags behavior by default pointlessly limits those improvements/optimizations.

2. There're indeed possible optimizations that can speed up checkout, potentially by a large margin in repos with long history and many tags. (Remember, not all but virtually all workflows start with git checkout, it's a "hot path", any savings matter). For example, consider this combination, fetch-depth: 1 + git fetch origin --deepen=1 +refs/tags/$TAG:refs/tags/$TAG. In a tag-triggered workflow, if all that's needed is the "latest" triggering tag — this is much faster than git fetch --tags. Why? Because git fetch --tags will fetch all tags in the repo, which necessarily entails (re)fetching all of the tagged commits, and their parents; it will basically re-clone the entire repo. OTOH, git fetch --depth 1 && git fetch --deepen=1 +refs/tags/$TAG:refs/tags/$TAG will fetch only two commits: the tagged one, and its parent. Depending on repo size, this can be orders of magnitude faster; it's O(nCommits) VS O(1) speed.

Yet again, I'm not opposing what you said, just explaining relevant nuance. I also don't find this

 # Whether to fetch tags, even if fetch-depth > 0.
 # Default: false

entirely satisfactory documentation.

---

Edit: oh, and the original Error: fatal: Cannot fetch both <sha> and refs/tags/<tag> to refs/tags/<tag> is definitely a bug that should be fixed.

[rewathkafley]

I have also faced similar issue using this flag. In may case, I am reading the tag annotation message. But it seems this flag overrides the annotation message with the first line of commit message the tag points to.

For now i am resorting to using the below option:

with:
    fetch-depth: 0
    ref: ${{ github.ref }}

[john-funk]

Looking at https://github.com/actions/checkout/blob/eef61447b9ff4aafe5dcd4e0bbf5d482be7e7871/dist/index.js#L657 it seems to me, that all fetch-tags: 1 does, is prevent setting --no-tags, so that only tags that point into the histories being fetched are also fetched.

[Molkree]

For anyone still wondering about this issue, adding ref: ${{ github.ref }} to the step fixes this if you want just one branch.

        with:
          fetch-depth: 250
          fetch-tags: true
          ref: ${{ github.ref }}

[john-behm-bertelsmann]

Adding ref: ${{ github.ref }} fixes my problem here.

steps:
      - name: 📂 Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          fetch-depth: 300
          fetch-tags: true
          ref: ${{ github.ref }}