Tracing the modified state of a file

When the reason for the modified state of a specific file is unclear, following procedure allows to debug details for this file.

Compare with git status

Give git status a try and see whether the same modification is present there. If so, you may still run through this procedure, but likely the answer to this question is found elsewhere (reason may be a wrong .git/config, EOL-related issues or Git-LFS issues).

If invoking git status does not show the same modification or even resets the modification in SmartGit, the resulting debug information should be sufficient to understand the difference between SmartGit’s status detection and Git’s status.

Procedure

  • Shutdown SmartGit.

  • Add smartgit.statusscanner.trace=<relative-path> to smartgit.properties (in the settings directory, see About dialog).
    <relative-path> is the repository-relative path of the file for which the modification should be traced. On Windows, also replace backslashes by forward slashes.

    Example

    On Windows, for example for file C:\vss\Project\FOO\bar\file with repository root C:\vss\Project, you should add line:

    smartgit.statusscanner.trace=FOO/bar/file

  • Get rid of the log directory inside the settings directory.

  • Restart SmartGit.

  • Open the offending repository and wait until the Refresh has finished and the modified file is showing up.

  • Make sure the files inside the log directory contain debug lines for the smartgit.status.index category.
    You may use grep "smartgit.status.index" log.txt* to find out.

  • ZIP the log directory and send to [email protected], together with an explanation of the problem.

Git-LFS Issues

If executing git status also shows the files as modified, try invoking git lfs status:

$ git lfs status
On branch master
Objects to be pushed to origin/master:


Objects to be committed:


Objects not staged for commit:

        _img/screenshots/android_auto/de/11_android_auto_map.png (Git: 0731d28 -> File: 0731d28)
...

Then this stackoverflow article might help you.