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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-24T23:59:04+00:00

I am aware that there are similar issues about git relating to the ‘unable

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I am aware that there are similar issues about git relating to the ‘unable to unlink’ warning, but I have not been able to use them.

The main difference is that this happened when I have not been dealing with submodules in any way (I have never dealt with them before). I created a branch called ‘upgrade’, deleted my old framework files, and copied in the new ones. I used git add -A, then committed everything. When I tried to checkout the trunk branch, it responded with the following errors:

warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/sk/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/sv/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/zh/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/zh_cn/index.php: Permission denied
warning: unable to unlink requirements/views/zh_tw/index.php: Permission denied

…etc. There are hundreds of them.

At first I thought this was simply a permissions problem, and so I added group write permissions to the entire requirements directory recursively, but there was no change.

Edit: As suggested in an answer below, I attempted to do the same thing but with everything else closed. I had no more luck than before.

This issue is particularly debilitating as I cannot move to trunk to get back to normal development.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I usually see that kind of error when there is a process not releasing the handle of those files.

    Make sure nothing is running, and then try your checkout again.

    Note: it can also be related with the way Git has been installed (on Windows, UAC can generate problem if msysgit is installed in C:\Program or C:\Program Files, see “msysgit – sh.exe – fork: Permission denied – Vista 64 bit” and comment 2 of issue 437)

    Note: as illustrated below, a common other cause of the problem is rights issue on the directory (wrong owner), not necessarily on the file that can’t be unlinked.

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