`upgrade` will fail and leave the repo broken when run in a v5 direct repo with annex.alwayscommit=false and not synced since the last change. > Forwarded from a private email to me, have not reproduced yet. --[[Joey]] Update: Got a repo tarball sent to me that reproduces the problem. It looks like this: git annex upgrade upgrade (v5 to v6...) caught exception: Somehow no branch is checked out failed (recording state in git...) git-annex: upgrade: 1 failed .git/HEAD points to refs/heads/annex/direct/master, but that ref does not actually exist yet. The repo was created with git-annex 7.20190731-gbb16a2610 and this sequence of commands: git init . git config user.email "email@example.com" git config user.name "Name Name" git config annex.alwayscommit false git config annex.autoupgraderepository false git annex init foobar git annex direct echo "aaaa" > a && echo "bbbb" > b git annex add a b git annex drop --force a Note that lack of git-annex sync, which is why the branch never got created. The index file has the adds staged of course. > [[fixed|done]] --[[Joey]]