error: couldn't fetch advisory database: git operation failed: reference 'refs/heads/master' not found; class=Reference (4); code=NotFound (-3)

[robinst]

I just installed cargo audit:

$ cargo audit --version
cargo-audit 0.3.2

But running it fails with "git operation failed":

$ cargo audit
    Fetching advisory database from `https://github.com/RustSec/advisory-db.git`
error: couldn't fetch advisory database: git operation failed: reference 'refs/heads/master' not found; class=Reference (4); code=NotFound (-3)

I tried cloning directly via git clone https://github.com/RustSec/advisory-db.git and that works, so not sure what the problem is.

[tarcieri]

Can you reproduce this error? You can try cargo audit -D /tmp/tmp-advisory-db to force it to clone in a different location.

[robinst]

Yeah, happened every time. I ran cargo audit -D /tmp/tmp-advisory-db and that worked.

So I looked at ~/.cargo/advisory-db/ (didn't know about that before, maybe you can include it in the error message to help people). It looked like this:

$ find ~/.cargo/advisory-db/
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db/
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/config
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects/pack
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects/pack/pack-b587a2eab8a13d1aae0c6a2c25d18755f1f16d85.pack
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects/pack/pack-be51098f0483104a6d375f8550166df5911ac710.pack
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects/pack/pack-b587a2eab8a13d1aae0c6a2c25d18755f1f16d85.idx
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects/pack/pack-be51098f0483104a6d375f8550166df5911ac710.idx
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/objects/info
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/HEAD
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/info
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/info/exclude
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/logs
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/logs/refs
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/logs/refs/remotes
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/logs/refs/remotes/origin
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/logs/refs/remotes/origin/master
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/description
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/hooks
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/hooks/README.sample
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/refs
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/refs/heads
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/refs/tags
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/refs/remotes
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/refs/remotes/origin
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/refs/remotes/origin/master
/Users/rstocker/.cargo/advisory-db//.git/FETCH_HEAD

So then I did a rm -rf ~/.cargo/advisory-db/ just to try.

Now cargo audit works. So not sure what was wrong before, maybe the file list gives you a clue? Sorry, I should have moved the directory, not deleted it :).

[tarcieri]

Sounds like the repository got into a bad state somehow. Looking at the similar Cargo code for managing the repositories it does quite a bit to clean up repositories in bad states, so it seems there is some work to do in that regard.

Glad recloning fixed your problems otherwise though. I'll try to add some error handling and cleanup logic to the repository fetcher and hopefully that will address the issue in the future.

One other question though: did this happen the first time you ran cargo audit, or did it work OK the first time and fail on a follow-up run?

[robinst]

One other question though: did this happen the first time you ran cargo audit, or did it work OK the first time and fail on a follow-up run?

I think I had the problem the first time I ran it.

[paul-tcell]

I notice this happens if $HOME/.cargo/advisory-db/ exists, but is empty. removing the directory entirely fixes it.

[tarcieri]

@paul-tcell interesting! I'll try making a test case for that and see if I can reproduce it

[colindean]

@tarcieri What work needs to be done? I might be able to take a look.

[tarcieri]

@colindean a test needs to be added for these cases which captures this bug and the one in #45 (which both seem like two symptoms of the same root cause). After that, I feel like a std::fs::create_dir_all should resolve the issue.

[tarcieri]

This should be fixed by https://github.com/RustSec/rustsec-crate/pull/47, which was released as rustsec v0.9.2

[robinst]

Thank you!

[SyamiliV]

How do i install v0.9.2 alone? By default i can get only v0.13.1 version. Can you please help. I am having same problem

[SyamiliV]

cargo audit -D /tmp/tmp-advisory-db command not working for me

[garyanaplan]

I just hit this issue this morning:

cargo audit --version      
cargo-audit 0.14.0

I poked a few things with little luck. Then

rm -rf ~/.cargo/advisory-db kicked it into life.