How to debug "ReadObjectFail: Failed to read git object with oid"

[shlomokraus]

I am using isomorphic-git for node (latest version) and encoutnerd the error ReadObjectFail: Failed to read git object with oid while cloning our big repository (with submodules). Is there a way to debug this error to see exactly where does it fail? How can I get the object associated with that id?

Thank you

[billiegoose]

Isomorphic-git doesn't implement cloning submodules yet, so I'm not sure how you are doing that. 🤨Normally it would throw an error saying literally "submodules aren't implemented yet".

But to answer your question: if you have the id, and you clone the project using regular (canonical) git, you can use the git cat-file -p [id] command to see what the object is.

[settermjd]

I encountered this issue today. I believe that the root cause of the error is that it occurs when isomorphic-git's attempts to work with an incomplete or corrupted git repository. Here's why. I'm using Antora to build documentation for a client and it internally uses isomorphic-git to clone a number of remote repositories, from which it builds HTML from AsciiDoc source files.

Recently, I removed its cache directory, where it has isomorphic-git store the cloned repositories, and started a build. As the cache directory wasn't present, Antora first began cloning all of the required repositories. However, the process was abruptly halted when the remote shell where it was executing ended.

The next time I started the build, I encountered the "ReadObjectFail" error. Since the cache directory was present, I believe that isomorphic-git tried to use the partially cloned repositories which it contained. However, As the previous clone didn't complete properly, one or more objects were missing. Consequently, the "ReadObjectFail:..." error was thrown.

I hope this lengthy post helps.

[billiegoose]

I believe that isomorphic-git tried to use the partially cloned repositories which it contained. However, As the previous clone didn't complete properly, one or more objects were missing.

I think this has happened to me as well. My day-job company, Stoplight, has started using isomorphic-git to do a lot of cloning, so hopefully I'll start encountering more edge cases where cloning fails (network error, fs error, corrupted download) and that'll give me an opportunity to dig into the root causes and maybe figure out how to recover from aborted clones.