[[!comment format=mdwn username="t.z.mates" avatar="http://cdn.libravatar.org/avatar/90f15fad216078fd08d62cc676487925" subject="comment 5" date="2017-01-08T06:43:48Z" content=""" So, I've done a bit more investigating, and it seems the specific command that causes the error is git --git-dir=../../../../.git --work-tree=../../../.. --literal-pathspecs ls-files --modified -- foo In particular, if I execute the code: git init git annex init --version=6 mkdir -p 1/2/3/4 touch 1/2/3/4/foo git annex add 1/2/3/4/foo git annex sync git annex unlock 1/2/3/4/foo echo \"bar\" >> 1/2/3/4/foo cd 1/2/3/4 git --git-dir=../../../../.git --work-tree=../../../.. --literal-pathspecs ls-files --modified -- foo I get the above mentioned error. However, if I run the exact same code without any of the \"git annex\" commands (i.e. only initializing a standard git repository), the ls-files commands returns without error. I'm not sure what to make of this though; it doesn't seem to be any sort of corrupted log or bad config options (I ran the same commands on a different, working computer, copied the .git directory to the non-working computer, and still couldn't run the ls-files command). I'm rather at a loss of what to check next. """]]