Git warning: unable to access '/home/user/.gitconfig': Is a directory

Question

I am getting this error for every git command I try to run and haven't found anywhere something similar. I have found stuff like "permission denied" and other problems to access the git configurations but nothing related to this "Is a directory" warning. I don't even know if it is related to the fatal error I am getting, but it is all the information I currently have.

user@computer:~/folder$ git status
warning: unable to access '/home/user/.gitconfig': Is a directory
warning: unable to access '/home/user/.gitconfig': Is a directory
fatal: unknown error occurred while reading the configuration files

Answer 1

.gitconfig is a global configuration file of git tool. Like this, your name, email, some tools... https://gist.github.com/gokure/3488458

Not sure how you created your .gitconfig directory, but to be safe, rename it to .gitconfig_backup_dir , then git should then run flawlessly, cause git will not find $HOME/.gitconfig but will work without it flawlessly.

Answer 2

I had similar issue, because as the error says the ~/.gitconfig was a directory instead of being a file!

Junji's answer worked for me by renaming the directory but I faced the same error whenever I used git config --global command again as it was making another .gitconfig directory again. To solve this issue permanently, I removed the directory and made a file with the same name and it solved the issue forever as git config --global and other commands which need .gitconfig file could use this file.

I simply deleted the directory with:

rmdir ~/.gitconfig

and then made a blank new file with the same name:

nano ~/.gitconfig

That's it. Done!

Answer 3

2020 年更新：您必须将您的用户名和电子邮件添加到文件中

Answer 4

I had the same issue on WSL2:

1. I could delete this folder from Windows, by going to \\wsl$\\Ubuntu-20.04\\home<my_username> and deleting .gitconfig folder, but it was immediately recreated.
2. Turns out that what was keeping it busy is the Docker integration for WSL2. I stopped the (Windows) process, and I was able to rm -R ~/.gitconfig folder from windows.

I then created the file ~/.gitconfig to prevent Docker from repeating this nasty behavior