“bad config line 1” in config file when cloning

Question

I'm getting an error when cloning a bitbucket-hosted repository to my computer.

When I enter in git bash:

git clone https://myusername@bitbucket.org/groupname/repositoryname.git

I get the message

Cloning into 'repositoryname'..

fatal: bad config line 1 in file U://.../repositoryname/.git/config

Unlink of file 'repositoryname/.git/config' failed.
Should I try again? (y/n)

The destination folder contains a .git subfolder, which itself contains the file config , along with a hooks subfolder containing various files.
The config file has the following contents:

[core]
repositoryformatversion = 0
filemode = false

Trying again by hitting y accomplishes nothing.

I am aware of a similar question asked earlier: Bad git config file .git/config , but that had to do with a repository that was being worked on.
This is a problem with even getting started, so I'm at a loss to see what to do.

In case my .gitconfig file is considered as a possible source of the error, here its contents:

[user]
name = ...
email = ...

Answer 1

Please check if you are cloning on a network drive , it is probably not working because of that.

If you can, please just switch to local machine.

If you really need to clone on a network drive please check if the problem is caused by hardlinks by using the --no-hardlinks option:

git clone --no-hardlinks /path/to/your/repository

NB: usually this happens if your HOMEDRIVE / HOMESHARE environmental variables are set on a network drive and you clone for the first time.