Update errors (homebrew/dupes and configure error on ML)

[fortin]

Hi, I've been getting several brew update errors that none of the suggested fixes resolve. For example:

MBA:~ fortin$ brew update
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
    expect.rb
    libiconv.rb
    ncurses.rb
    openldap.rb
    openssh.rb
    perl.rb
    tcl.rb
    tk.rb
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can merge.
Aborting
Error: Failed to update tap: homebrew/dupes
Updated Homebrew from 008b09ca to 7dd2e5f4.
==> Updated Formula
apollo      drush       libxmlsec1  vorbis-tools    z
bigloo      icarus-verilog  scm-manager x264
MBA:~ fortin$ ls
Cellar          hidden          sbin
Library         hw_mobile_userdata  share
README.md       include         texlive
bin         lib         var
etc         man

The most popular fix for this kind of thing seems to be the following, but it doesn't fix anything for me:

MBA:~ fortin$ cd /usr/local && sudo git reset --hard FETCH_HEAD
HEAD is now at 008b09c dnsmasq: use options DSL

Plus, when I brew update after running this last command, trying it again gives a different error:

MBA:~ fortin$ cd /usr/local && sudo git reset --hard FETCH_HEAD
HEAD is now at 7dd2e5f libxmlsec1: fix configure error on ML

I can't find any instructions on how to fix configure error on ML. Any help with this would be much appreciated.

[mistydemeo]

Please don't use sudo when doing this. It's not a good idea!

Instead of cd /usr/local, try cd /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew-dupes && git reset --hard, then brew update.

[fortin]

Thanks for the quick reply! I didn't think any commands in /usr/local required sudo, and I never used it. But, anyway, your suggestion worked! brew is updating as it should.

What do you think could have caused these problems in the first place?

Thanks so much!

[2bits]

This is often caused by a lack of vegetables, but don't quote me. This could be the one that depends_on 'fruit'

[mistydemeo]

@2bits++

What happened was that there were changes to files in your copy of the homebrew-dupes tap; since there were new changes to those files being pulled in, brew update wasn't able to merge them in. This might have happened if you made manual changes to the files, or if something went wrong while doing brew update another time - for instance, permissions errors.

[fortin]

@mistydemeo

Thanks. I hadn't made any manual changes to anything in /usr/local, so I'm happy with 'something went wrong' :)

[mxcl]

We really need to figure out how this sort of thing happens and do repairs or suggest steps for the user to take.

[AdrienGiboire]

@mxcl ++

I went through these issue having changes I am sure I never made.

[jwswj]

Thanks for the tip @mistydemeo

[jweyrich]

Check whether you have directories/files in /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-dupes/.git/objects that belong to root:admin rather than your_user:admin. I had the same problem and found multiple directories/files belonging to root -- I probably must have used sudo during an brew update in the past -- The strange thing is that I got the same error, Error: Failed to update tap: homebrew/dupe, not a permission error. Doing a sudo chown -R user:admin /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-dupes/.git/objects did fix it for me.

[zadacka]

I've run across this problem and it also turned out to be a permissions issue exactly as @jweyrich experienced. chown fixed it. Don't remember having sudo'd any brew commands in the past though, so now idea how the permissions got changed.