Detecting the Current Branch Failed: Fatal: HEAD Is Not a Symbolic Ref

This issue occurs when I tried with Jenkins build using Maven Release Plugin. I was trying to build my production release artifacts. I was building my "master" branch and its for final release. I have used Git as repository. I faced this issue when clicked on "maven release build" link on left side corner of my Maven project (Jenkins job) .

As we know build issue is common for developers those are actively participating with Build and Release. This issue over Jenkins is common , but I never found any direct or easy solution for this. I spend couple of hour to resolve and google almost all relevant sites and article.But, not able to work out. Finally did it by some HIT and TRY ,then it works for me.   

Issue log details :-

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

[INFO] BUILD FAILURE

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

[INFO] Total time: 23.884s

[INFO] Finished at: Wed Dec 17 18:05:43 EST 2014

[INFO] Final Memory: 15M/301M

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiting for Jenkins to finish collecting data

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-release-plugin:2.0:prepare (default-cli) on project hello_world_app: An error is occurred in the checkin process: Exception while executing SCM command. Detecting the current branch failed: fatal: ref HEAD is not a symbolic ref -> [Help 1]

[ERROR]

[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.

[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.

[ERROR]

[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:

[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoExecutionException

[JENKINS] Archiving /opt/jenkins_dev/workspace/SDP_BIZ_HELLO_WORLD_APP/pom.xml to in.com.company.xcop.sdp.bizservice.test.dao/hello_world_app/0.0.8-SNAPSHOT/ hello_world_app -0.0.8-SNAPSHOT.pom

channel stopped

Started calculate disk usage of build

Finished Calculation of disk usage of build in 0 seconds

Started calculate disk usage of workspace

Finished Calculation of disk usage of workspace in 0 seconds

Solution :-

 In Jenkins job , open the configuration and go to Git configuration => Advance Options => << add your local branch name >>. In my case I have added "master" .

If you are using some other version of jerkins then , you may find the similar settings with other way. In the same way Git configuration => Advance Options => Additional Behaviors => Check out to specific local branch => << Add your local branch name >>.   

Attached the screenshot below with highlight. 

How to Create a Git Tag

How to create tagging on git.

Really creating tag is  one of the best practice for development and maintain version. 

As per my understanding production release for your code is a nightmare , we don't know what will happen ???????

Also to maintain the code base stable and safety we need this tagging. This is quite often developers do google for tagging the their code (branch / master) for safety and reference future use.

This is quite simple , and below example will help you to understand the commands on command line.

Clone your code branch (use clone command to clone the code)

git clone https://your.user.name@stash.jdgnet.com.au/scm/enabler/testcode.git

Switch your expected branch (i.e.  bugfix/jdctagging) , which you want to create tagging and make sure you are inside the expected branch.

dev@jdg-developer-desktop ~/jdgtaggingdemo/test $ git checkout bugfix/jdctagging
Branch bugfix/testing set up to track remote branch bugfix/jdctagging from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'bugfix/jdctagging'
dev@jdg-developer-desktop ~/jdgtaggingdemo/test $ git branch
* bugfix/jdctagging
  master

Create the tag with below command, you can specify the tag version name.

dev@jdg-developer-desktop ~/jdgtaggingdemo/test $ git tag -a "v1.taging.version1" -m "commiting with for test tagging for my branch code"

Check the tag got created on above command.

dev@jdg-developer-desktop ~/jdgtaggingdemo/test $ git tag
v1.taging.version1

Push the newly created tag into remote server (stash)

dev@jdg-developer-desktop ~/jdgtaggingdemo/test $ git push origin v1.taging.version1
Password for 'https://your.user.name@stash.jdgnet.com.au':
To https://your.user.name@stash.jdgnet.com.au/scm/enabler/test.git
 * [new tag]         v1.taging.version1 -> v1.taging.version1

If you don't want to push the tag by name and you want to push all tags then use below command. In my example I have only created one tag and I didn't use the below command.

git push origin --tags

Now you can see the [new tag] got created on remote server. See the snapshot below , showing the tag on stash.