Error fetching Tap about homebrew-ffmpeg

[harrygallagher4]

I had the same error. It looks like the repo just changed the default branch to main instead of master. I'm not a git expert, but managed to fix it by manually checking out main locally and changing HEAD.

(some of these commands may be unnecessary)

cd /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew-ffmpeg/homebrew-ffmpeg
git fetch
git checkout main
git remote prune origin
git branch -D master

Then replacing "master" with "main" in .git/refs/remotes/origin/HEAD which is probably not the best idea, but it worked.

[slhck]

Thanks for reporting this issue. I'm surprised that they'd do this to existing repos. This is bound to break much more stuff.

I'm inclined to rename it back to master just to prevent further issues. But then again this should be fixed in brew itself, no?

[slhck]

A workaround is suggested here:

brew untap -f homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
brew tap homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg

[slhck]

As a quick fix, I've renamed main back to master. I do not want to force our users to manually fix something that brew apparently cannot handle yet.

If this issue persists please reopen.

[retokromer]

@slhck master is considered a racist term. I guess the recommended fix is:

cd $(brew --repo homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg)
git branch -m master main
git fetch origin
git branch -u origin/main main

Yet, of course, I agree with renaming back!

[slhck]

I am aware of the possible/recommended fix, but that seems like a complicated workaround.

I would like to avoid going into the discussion behind the naming of the branch; that ship has sailed and there are other opinions, too. My personal opinion does not matter and should not matter (white cis-male speaking here), but what I can observe is that this action will lead to unforeseen behavior that will ultimately confuse end users.

I have no issue with going forward with a different default name (like for git or new GitHub projects), but switching the branch on existing projects is – as demonstrated by this issue – not a good solution.

Let's wait until brew or git can handle this transparently, then we can of course rename the branch.

[retokromer]

I am aware of the possible/recommended fix, but that seems like a complicated workaround.

Indeed! I fully agree with you.

[jennifert]

Ah, i see. Thank you for explaining! Its working now, though I should have tried the untap, I was thinking of it, but then was not sure. Thank you all for the help! :)

[slhck]

@retokromer Just to make sure, did you change the branch name or was it done automatically?

[sjackman]

brew tap --repair should fix that, and brew update should detect the rename and instruct a user to run brew tap --repair.

See Homebrew/brew#10424 (comment)