Updating forked repo from upstream develop branch? (Not something we can merge)

Question

[Edit #2]: adding new details

Hi all - have been doing a good amount of research on this but haven't found something that matches my situation.

I'm following the process here to keep a fork updated: there are a lot of resources online about keeping my fork updated if their changes are on their master branch, eg Git merge from someone else's fork

Here's the process I'm following.

[inside local directory for given repo]

git remote add origin [link]; git remote add upstream [link]

git fetch upstream

git checkout master

git merge --no-ff upstream/master

My attempt to merge gives me --no-ff - not something we can merge which is a tough error to decode!

Answer 1

The only thing I could see missing is an update to the master branch before the merge --no-ff

git checkout master
git pull

Just to make sure master itself is up-to-date.

The OP AmeySMahajan added in the comments :

Incorporated git checkout master then git pull upstream master and then the merge line, but still getting merge: --no-ff - not something we can merge , unfortunately.

But: A pull is a fetch + merge , so an additional merge ( --no-ff or not) of upstream/master , which you already pulled, would not do anything. –