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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T05:25:25+00:00

I’m trying to create a local branch that tracks a remote branch. Here’s what

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I’m trying to create a local branch that tracks a remote branch. Here’s what I get:

> git checkout master

> git push origin origin:refs/heads/myBranch
Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:myrepo/myproject.git
* [new branch]      origin/HEAD -> myBranch

> git fetch origin

> git checkout --track -b myBranch origin/myBranch
warning: unable to unlink website: Operation not permitted
Branch myBranch set up to track remote branch myBranch from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'myBranch'

What does “warning: unable to unlink website: Operation not permitted” mean? Did everything work fine?

Later:

There is a folder called “website,” but it has no contents. git submodule init and git submodule update both do nothing, and git submodule init website and git submodule update website both yield

error: pathspec 'website' did not match any file(s) known to git.
Did you forget to 'git add'?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    git issues that warning when you’re switching from a branch that has this submodule to one that does not.

    When switching branches, git wants to clean up your working copy from everything that doesn’t belong, but it can’t delete directories which have submodules in them because they are designed to be completely manual — git never implicitly touches the state of your submodules.

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