Homebrew-cask: brew update : Failed to update tap: caskroom/cask, local changes would be overwritten by merge

[jonathanpa]

By doing a brew update, I have a problem with Cask. Below the trace:

error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge:
    Casks/010-editor.rb
    Casks/0ad.rb
    Casks/0xdbe-eap.rb
    Casks/33-rpm.rb
    Casks/4k-video-downloader.rb
        ...
    Casks/shapes.rb
    Casks/simplifyextras.rb
    Casks/smart-scroll.rb
    Casks/spamsieve.rb
    Casks/the-tagger.rb
    Casks/thrustshell.rb
    Casks/yourkit-java-profiler.rb
    lib/vendor/plist.rb
Please move or remove them before you can merge.
Aborting
Error: Failed to update tap: caskroom/cask
Already up-to-date.

Please note that I use Homebrew with 2 users on my machine, but by setting the permissions wisely, normally I don't have problems.

Thanks

[iggyvolz]

If you changed the permissions on the files, that will show as a change to git.

You can tell git to ignore these permissions by running:

git config core.filemode false

from your homebrew cask prefix (I believe it's /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew-cask by default but I'm not positive).
You may run into some problems in the future if permissions change to Homebrew Cask. In that case, you'll want to run:

git config core.filemode true
git stash
git pull
git stash apply
git config core.filemode false

You may have to fix merge conflicts on git stash apply.

[iggyvolz]

The directory is /usr/local/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/, not /usr/local/Library/Taps/homebrew-cask/.

[rolandwalker]

Hi @jonathanpa!

The message you are getting lists Cask files as being out of date, but the command brew update is not our code (it is Homebrew's). We can help you try to diagnose, but in the end we cannot make any changes to our code that would address the issue.

Homebrew uses git to perform its updates. The warning originates from git itself. Git is warning that the files on your disk are out of whack with the changes it wants to make to sync up the repo. Specifically, the repo at /usr/local/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/.

I would try to reset the whole Caskroom Tap, which is easy:

$ brew untap caskroom/cask
$ ls /usr/local/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/          # this dir should be gone now
$ brew tap caskroom/cask
$ ls /usr/local/Library/Taps/caskroom/homebrew-cask/          # this dir should be back

After that, you should be able to run brew update. If you can't, you may need to file an issue with Homebrew.

[Amorymeltzer]

@jonathanpa I had this same issue, I think??? it's from a partial/incomplete update on homebrew's part. Doing the following solved it for me:

cd /usr/local
git add .
git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/master

H/T http://stackoverflow.com/q/14113427/2521092 and https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/issues/2906#issuecomment-26847664

[jonathanpa]

Hi @rolandwalker and @Amorymeltzer !

@Amorymeltzer thanks for your suggestions but it didn't work for me. And brew untap brew tap did the trick thanks to @rolandwalker.

[maxadolfsson]

+1 for brew untap + brew tap! :+1:

---

My problem was with caskroom/versions:

$ brew update
Error: Failed to update tap: caskroom/versions
Already up-to-date.

And the following solved it:

$ brew untap caskroom/versions
$ brew tap caskroom/versions

Thanks @rolandwalker!

[gnarl]

Ran into the same issue maxadolsson had with caskroom/versions. Another +1 for use of brew untap + brew tap!