# How to Fix fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories

Have you ever encountered this error `fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories.`, while working with git? Well, I have and it wasn't fun. How did I get to that error, you may ask yourself.

This was how it all went down:

I generated an angular project and as you know angular by default comes with git initialized. I then went to create a project in GitHub and added an MIT License file then I came back to add a remote URL by this command in my Angular project

```git
   git remote add origin git@github.com:user/example-project.git
```

Upon writing the `git push origin main` then the error occurred.

After a length and thorough research on this error this is what I discovered:

## Causes

### 1\. Incompatibility between local repository and remote repository.

This mostly occurs in new projects, if there are some changes in a new remote repository and you have a new repository locally which there are also changes which are not pushed. This is what happened to me.

### 2\. Initiation of merge between two branches with no shared history.

### 3\. Corrupted `.git` directory.

In a nutshell, this error commonly occurs in situations where we are integrating disparate repositories or initiating a merge between branches with no shared history.

What is the way forward then, you may ask. Well here is how to solve it and avoid the irritation the error brings:

## Solutions

### 1\. Use Allow Unrelated Histories Flag (`--allow-unrelated-histories`)

This is a flag which can be used when merging two different branches or when pulling from same branch with incompatible changes.

When merging, this flag can be used as follows:

```git
 git merge --allow-unrelated-histories <branch-name>
```

When pulling, this flag can be used as follows:

```git
git <branch-name> origin master --allow-unrelated-histories
```

### 2\. Create a new Commit

Create a new empty commit that connects unrelated branches then merge those branches.

*   Empty Commit
    

```git
git commit --allow-empty -m "Merge unrelated branches"
```

*   Merge unrelated branches
    

```git
git merge <branch-name>
```

But how do we prevent this error from totally occurring?

## Prevention

### 1\. Repository Initialization

When setting up a new repository, it’s advisable to initialize it using an existing project. This approach links their histories, helping to prevent the issue of unrelated histories.

More information can be found [here](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-merge).

Thank you for reading! Until next time ✋