# Bug: `git fetch rad` can never fetch `refs/notes/rad-lfs` **RESOLVED** (2026-07-14). Fix: `refs/notes/rad-lfs` is now exposed per-peer (`refs/notes/rad-lfs/`) instead of expecting one canonical bare ref, matching how patch refs already work — see "Fix actually shipped" for the full writeup and verification. **Follow-up "Bug #2" also RESOLVED** (2026-07-14, same day) — turned out to be two separate things, neither a bug in the fix above: a stale, unrelated system-wide `git-remote-rad` install being silently used in manual ad-hoc testing (not a real pipeline issue), plus one genuinely new bug (a cross-device `rename()` failure on LFS download) found only once the real pipeline actually ran with the fix. See "Root cause of Bug #2, actually found" at the very bottom for the full story — verified live against the production deploy pipeline on mbator.pl, which completed successfully end-to-end. Kept the original report and the mid-investigation "Follow-up" section below unedited, for context on how the debugging actually went. Found while deploying `rad-lfs-ipfs` to mbator.pl for the blog pipeline (2026-07-14). Blocks the whole LFS-over-IPFS flow end-to-end, not just a cold-start edge case. ## Symptom After `rad lfs init` in any repo, `git fetch rad` (and therefore `git pull`, and anything that does the equivalent, e.g. `deploy.sh`'s `git fetch rad && git reset --hard rad/master`) fails every time with: ``` fatal: couldn't find remote ref refs/notes/rad-lfs ``` This isn't specific to a fresh repo where nobody has pushed an LFS object yet — it reproduces even after a real push has created the note and it's fully present in the receiving node's storage. ## Root cause Two places are involved: 1. **`crates/radicle-cli/src/commands/lfs/init.rs:134`** — `rad lfs init` configures the client-side fetch/push refspec as a bare, non-namespaced ref: ```rust let notes_refspec = format!("+{NOTES_REF}:{NOTES_REF}"); // +refs/notes/rad-lfs:refs/notes/rad-lfs ``` 2. **`crates/radicle-remote-helper/src/list.rs`, `for_fetch()`** (lines 38-79) — this is what actually determines which refs `git-remote-rad` advertises as fetchable for a plain (non-namespaced) `git fetch rad`. It only ever lists: - `HEAD` - `refs/heads/*` and `refs/tags/*` (canonicalized across delegates) - patch refs (via `patch_refs()`) It has **no knowledge of `refs/notes/rad-lfs` at all**. Notes only exist per-peer, under `refs/namespaces//refs/notes/rad-lfs` (confirmed directly on a live node: `git for-each-ref` in the node's storage shows `refs/namespaces/z6Mkkph.../refs/notes/rad-lfs`, never a bare `refs/notes/rad-lfs`). `refs/heads/*` gets a canonical, non-namespaced view via delegate-threshold resolution; `refs/notes/rad-lfs` has no equivalent resolution step, so it's simply never in the list the remote helper offers — regardless of what refspec the client has configured in `.git/config`. So the client asks for a ref the server-side listing never advertises, and `git fetch` (which validates requested refspecs against the advertised ref list) fails hard for the *entire* fetch, not just that one ref — meaning a repo with `rad lfs init` run can't `git fetch`/`git pull` *anything* anymore, heads included, until this is fixed. ## Suggested direction for a fix `for_fetch()` needs to expose some resolved form of the LFS notes ref for the non-namespaced case, analogous to how `refs/heads/*` gets canonicalized. Options, roughly in order of how much they change the design: - **Simplest**: expose *all* peers' notes refs individually under some fetchable name (e.g. `refs/notes/rad-lfs/`), and change the LFS tooling (`rad lfs store`/`fetch`/`rekey`) to read/merge across all of them instead of expecting one canonical ref. Matches how git notes are designed to be merged anyway. - **Closer to current design**: pick one canonical note per commit the same way heads get a canonical value (e.g. delegate-threshold agreement, or "the delegate's own namespace" the way `for_push` already restricts pushes to `profile.id()`'s own namespace) and expose that as the bare `refs/notes/rad-lfs`. - Either way, `init.rs`'s refspec (`+refs/notes/rad-lfs:refs/notes/rad-lfs`) is probably fine as-is *once* the server side actually advertises something at that path — the bug is really in `list.rs`, not `init.rs`. ## Confirmed working around this bug (verified live on mbator.pl, 2026-07-14) Everything upstream and downstream of this one step works: - Fork built clean (`cargo install` for `radicle-cli`, `radicle-node`, `radicle-remote-helper`, `radicle-lfs-transfer`) at commit `33ffa122`. - `rad lfs init` succeeds and configures the pre-commit hook, transfer agent, and (broken) refspec correctly per its own logic. - A real private-repo LFS push (`git push rad master`, encrypted via ECDH, `RAD_PASSPHRASE` from an ssh-agent-backed key) succeeded and replicated to a seed node. - Node-to-node replication of the note itself works fine at the storage layer — the receiving node's `refs/namespaces//refs/notes/rad-lfs` is populated correctly. - The failure is *only* in the working-copy-level `git fetch rad` being unable to see it. ## Also found along the way (separate, minor) Two `radicle-cli` crashes (not yet investigated, crash reports written to `/tmp/report-*.toml` on the VPS at the time): - `rad node status` crashed once (worked on retry). - `rad seed` (no args, to check a repo's local seeding policy) crashed consistently. ## Deployment state left in place (mbator.pl) - `blog` user has a working IPFS (Kubo) container, the fork built at `~/.radicle/bin`, `radicle-node-blog.service`/`blog-radicle-watch.service`/`blog-deploy.service` all pointed at the new binaries with `PATH`/`KUBO_API_URL` set correctly. - Added an explicit `connect` entry for the local `seed` node (`z6MkmUF9KWFBQzYXBeNJk1bXXQGzaATnEsWxmbUYt54fyEC6@127.0.0.1:8776`) to `/home/blog/.radicle/config.json` — the private `blog` node had no route to the local public seed by default (`connect: []`, generic `preferredSeeds`), so `rad sync` timed out until this was added. Worth keeping regardless of the notes bug. - Public `seed` node/`/usr/bin/radicle-node`/`radicle-httpd` untouched throughout. - A harmless test commit (`3f650d2`, "infra: LFS-over-IPFS smoke test (safe to remove)") is sitting on top of the blog repo's real history in `~/Blog/Blog` and pushed to the network — adds `assets/_infra-test/lfs-ipfs-smoketest.jpg` (LFS-tracked, not referenced from any post, won't appear anywhere on the live site). Safe to leave or revert whenever convenient. ## Next step once fixed Re-run `git fetch rad` in `/home/blog/repo` on the VPS (as `blog`) — if the fix resolves the notes ref, that fetch (and the LFS smudge it triggers) is the last remaining piece to confirm the whole IPFS content-fetch path end-to-end. ## Follow-up: fix deployed, uncovered a second, more specific bug (2026-07-14, same day) Rebuilt both the local (`~/Blog/Blog`) and VPS (`/home/blog/repo`) checkouts against `ff762ef8` (the fix + the interactive-passphrase commit) and re-ran `rad lfs init` to pick up the migrated wildcard refspec (`+refs/notes/rad-lfs/*:refs/notes/rad-lfs/*`; the old exact-match entry needed manual removal once — `git update-ref -d refs/notes/rad-lfs` — on the author's machine where a stale *local* plain note ref pre-existed and D/F-conflicted with the incoming namespaced one; the `remove_refspec_if_present` migration in `init.rs` correctly stripped the *refspec config*, but doesn't (and structurally can't, from `init.rs`) also clean up a ref that already exists on disk from before). **On the author's machine**: `git fetch rad` now genuinely works — pulls `refs/notes/rad-lfs/` for real, exactly the repro case from the original bug. Confirmed fixed there. **On the VPS (`blog` user, second peer/node)**: same `rad lfs init` migration, but the actual fetch behaves inconsistently: - `git ls-remote rad` correctly lists the note: `c4538c2d... refs/notes/rad-lfs/z6MkkphWkrBU3Buhh4ZN8Gtt9KLzn2DUsx3hZhhXirK7XAyn` - `git fetch rad` (relying on the configured wildcard refspec) silently skips it — only reports `master` as `[up to date]`, no attempt at the notes ref, no error. - An **explicit** fetch of that exact literal ref name (copy-pasted straight from the `ls-remote` output above) still fails outright: ``` $ git fetch rad refs/notes/rad-lfs/z6MkkphWkrBU3Buhh4ZN8Gtt9KLzn2DUsx3hZhhXirK7XAyn:refs/notes/rad-lfs/z6MkkphWkrBU3Buhh4ZN8Gtt9KLzn2DUsx3hZhhXirK7XAyn fatal: couldn't find remote ref refs/notes/rad-lfs/z6MkkphWkrBU3Buhh4ZN8Gtt9KLzn2DUsx3hZhhXirK7XAyn ``` So `git-remote-rad`'s ref listing is inconsistent *between its own `list` output and what `fetch` actually resolves against*, for the identical ref, in the identical process invocation style — `ls-remote` and `fetch` are supposed to both go through the remote helper's `list` verb (that's the whole point of `for_fetch()` being one shared function), so seeing them disagree points at something conditional in how `list` is invoked (fetch vs. ls-remote may pass different capabilities/args to the helper, e.g. a `list for-push` vs. plain `list`, or some caching), rather than `for_fetch()`'s ref-selection logic itself (which is presumably fine, given `ls-remote` gets it right). Confirmed the underlying data is genuinely present and correct the whole time (verified directly in `blog`'s node storage, bypassing git-remote-rad entirely): ``` $ git -C /home/blog/.radicle/storage/z2Z16c9C5BaqSQPfbVrGPGG68wAx3 for-each-ref | grep lfs c4538c2d... commit refs/namespaces/z6MkkphW.../refs/notes/rad-lfs ``` and the note content itself has the right CID and correctly lists `blog`'s own node DID (`z6Mkpqi56U6...`) as an authorized decrypt recipient. So this is purely a `git-remote-rad` transport/listing bug, not a storage/replication/encryption issue. **Not yet root-caused** — flagging with the concrete repro above rather than guessing further at the Rust internals blind. Two machines, two outcomes, same binary version, same refspec, same underlying data: something about the *fetch* invocation path differs from the *ls-remote* invocation path in a way that changes what the helper's `list` returns or how the client matches against it. Worth checking: does `list.rs` (or whatever calls `for_fetch()`) get invoked with different arguments for `list` vs. `list for-push` vs. a fetch-triggered `list`, and does the *local* `remote..fetch` refspec (not just the server-side listing) factor into which lines the helper actually returns — i.e. is there a second, client-driven filtering step somewhere that behaves differently between the two call sites? ## Fix actually shipped Went with the "simplest" option from the list above, since it's also the semantically correct one: `refs/heads`/`refs/tags` get a canonical, non-namespaced value because only *delegates'* view matters for canonical history — a whole separate subsystem (canonical-ref computation on push/sync) maintains that. Notes have no equivalent: any peer, not just delegates, can commit an LFS-tracked file and write a note for it, so there's no single "correct" value to resolve to. Building delegate-consensus canonicalization for notes would also have been semantically wrong, not just more work — it would silently drop non-delegate contributors' LFS objects from ever being discoverable by anyone else. - `crates/radicle-remote-helper/src/list.rs`, `for_fetch()`: now also lists every peer's `refs/notes/rad-lfs`, individually, as `refs/notes/rad-lfs/` (new `lfs_notes_refs` helper, using `stored.remotes()` + `stored.reference_oid()`). `for_push()` needed no change — turns out it's purely informational (used for the `list for-push` git protocol handshake, i.e. fast-forward computation), not an enforcement gate; the actual `push_ref`/`send-pack` call already accepts any refspec regardless of what `for_push()` lists, which is why notes pushing already worked despite `for_push()` only ever listing `refs/heads`/`refs/tags`. - `crates/radicle-cli/src/commands/lfs/init.rs`: fetch refspec becomes a wildcard (`+refs/notes/rad-lfs/*:refs/notes/rad-lfs/*`); push refspec is unchanged (`git push` lands under the pusher's own namespace server-side regardless of the local ref name, same as `refs/heads/*`, so no wildcard needed there). Added a migration step (`remove_refspec_if_present`) that strips the old broken non-wildcard fetch refspec from already-configured repos — otherwise re-running `rad lfs init` would've just added the correct wildcard *alongside* the still-broken exact-match entry, which would still break the whole fetch (git fails the entire fetch if *any* requested refspec isn't advertised). - `crates/radicle-cli/src/lfs_crypto.rs`: new `find_envelopes`/`all_note_targets`/`find_cids` read across every notes ref (local + every fetched peer), not just one. Notes sharing the same `cid` (e.g. an original commit plus a later `rekey` that added recipients under a *different* peer's namespace) have their recipient lists safely unioned. Notes with *different* `cid`s for the same object (only possible if two peers independently encrypted byte-identical content — same oid/size — producing different ciphertext each time, since encryption uses a fresh random key/nonce) are kept as separate candidates; `rad lfs fetch`/`rekey` try each in turn rather than assuming there's only ever one. - `crates/radicle-cli/src/commands/lfs/fetch.rs`, `rekey.rs`, `ipfs.rs` (`lfs_cids`, used by `seed`/`unseed` pinning): all switched from single-ref `repo.notes(Some(NOTES_REF))` / `find_note` calls to the new multi-ref helpers above. `store.rs` needed no read-side change (write-only, always writes to the local plain ref, which is correct as-is). ### Verified for real (not the storage-copy shortcut used for the base feature's original tests — this bug lives specifically in the `git-remote-rad` transport, so the fix had to be exercised through the actual thing) Built fresh `rad`/`git-remote-rad`/`radicle-node`/`rad-lfs-transfer`, created two-then-three real Radicle identities/profiles, a real private repo with an allow-list, and used the **real** `rad://` remote (`git remote add rad rad://` for fetch, matching exactly what `rad init` itself configures — an earlier test attempt using a peer-scoped URL for both fetch and push accidentally bypassed the bug entirely by routing into `for_fetch()`'s *namespaced* branch, which was never broken; had to redo it with the correct canonical URL to actually exercise the bug/fix). - `git ls-remote rad` on the canonical URL now advertises `refs/notes/rad-lfs/` instead of nothing. - A genuine `git fetch rad` (no explicit refspec workaround) succeeds and actually pulls the peer's notes ref down locally — this is the exact command from the bug report that used to fail with `fatal: couldn't find remote ref refs/notes/rad-lfs`. - `git lfs pull` after that fetch correctly decrypts the private object end-to-end (SHA-256-verified). - Re-tested the rekey scenario (grant a new peer access after the object was already committed) through the same real fetch path: denied before rekey, an authorized peer runs `rad lfs rekey` + pushes, the new peer re-fetches and successfully decrypts. ### Also discovered along the way (separate, not fixed here — flagging, not scope-creeping) Once `rad lfs init` adds *any* explicit `remote..push` refspec (the notes one), a plain `git push rad` (no branch argument) stops falling back to `push.default=simple` for the current branch — git only pushes whatever's explicitly configured once any explicit refspec exists. So after running `rad lfs init`, `git push rad` alone only pushes the notes ref; `git push rad master` (explicit) is needed to also push the branch. This isn't new — it was already true before this fix, and both the original bug report's own reproduction and this fix's testing always used an explicit branch name when pushing, so it never surfaced as a problem in practice. Worth a real fix at some point (e.g. `rad lfs init` also ensuring an explicit `+refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/rad/*`-equivalent push default is present, or documenting "always `git push rad ` explicitly" as a hard requirement), but out of scope for this specific fetch-bug fix. ## Post-verification cleanup (2026-07-14, later still) VPS only needs the compiled binaries, not a persistent build environment. After confirming `/home/blog/.radicle/bin/{rad,radicle-node,git-remote-rad,rad-lfs-transfer}` are correct and working (live deploy already succeeded, see above), removed the source checkout and Rust toolchain to reclaim disk: `rm -rf /home/blog/radicle-heartwood-lfs /home/blog/.rustup /home/blog/.cargo`, plus dropped the now-dangling `. "$HOME/.cargo/env"` lines from `blog`'s `.bashrc`/`.profile`. Reclaimed ~3.2GB (9.7G → 6.5G used on `/`). Confirmed no systemd unit referenced the source dir or cargo/rustup, and the binaries are dynamically linked only against standard system libs (`ldd` shows just `libgcc_s`/`libm`/`libc`) — fine to run standalone. **Implication for next time a rebuild is needed**: the VPS has no source checkout or Rust toolchain anymore. Re-deploying a new fix means redoing the copy-source-and-build steps from scratch (or, better, sorting out `blog`'s lack of Forgejo SSH credentials so it can `git clone`/`pull` properly instead of the source being hand-copied in — see Part 1 of Bug #2 below for why that copy-instead-of-clone approach already caused one bit of git-history drift). ## Root cause of Bug #2, actually found (2026-07-14, same day, later) Got shell access to the VPS (`ssh mbator.pl`, passwordless sudo in a real tty) and reproduced directly rather than guessing further at the Rust internals. It was **two separate things**, not one — neither of them a bug in the fetch fix above. ### Part 1: not a code bug at all — a stale, unrelated binary `sudo -u blog bash -c '...'` (a bare, non-login shell — the same style of ad-hoc command used for all the manual reproduction so far) resolves `PATH` to the plain system default (`/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin`), which has **no** `~/.radicle/bin` in it. `which rad` in that context returns `/usr/local/bin/rad` — version `1.8.0`, a completely unrelated, root-owned, March-2026 system-wide install, nothing to do with this fork. Confirmed directly: - With `PATH=/home/blog/.radicle/bin:$PATH` explicitly set: `git ls-remote rad` *and* `git fetch rad` both correctly see and fetch `refs/notes/rad-lfs/` — full `GIT_TRANSPORT_HELPER_DEBUG=1` trace shows `list` correctly advertising it and git correctly issuing `fetch ` for it, ending in `[new ref] refs/notes/rad-lfs/`. - With the bare/default `PATH` (resolving to `/usr/local/bin/git-remote-rad`, the unrelated old binary): `git fetch rad` produces **zero output at all** — exactly the silent-skip symptom originally reported, byte for byte. So `list`/`for_fetch()` never actually disagreed between `ls-remote` and `fetch` for the same binary — the two commands were, at some point during manual testing, silently invoking two *different* binaries. The real automated pipeline was never actually at risk from this: all three blog-owned systemd units (`radicle-node-blog`, `blog-radicle-watch`, `blog-deploy`) already have `Environment=...PATH=/home/blog/.radicle/bin:...` correctly set. Confirmed via `systemctl cat` on all three. This was purely a manual-testing artifact. ### Part 2: a real, new bug — but only surfaces once you get past Part 1 `blog-deploy.service`'s last run before the fork rebuild had failed with the *original* Bug #1 error (timestamped *before* the 16:10–16:14 UTC rebuild/restart) — meaning the real pipeline, with its correct `PATH`, hadn't actually run even once against the fetch fix yet. Triggering it manually (`sudo systemctl start blog-deploy.service`) surfaced a genuinely new failure: ``` Downloading assets/_infra-test/lfs-ipfs-smoketest.jpg (692 B) Error downloading object: ...: failed to copy downloaded file: cannot replace ".../ .git/lfs/objects/c5/e3/c5e3b0c1..." with "/tmp/rad-lfs-c5e3b0c1...": rename /tmp/rad-lfs-c5e3b0c1... .../.git/lfs/objects/c5/e3/c5e3b0c1...: invalid cross-device link ``` The download and decryption had already succeeded by this point (692 B, matching exactly) — this was purely the final handoff to git-lfs failing. Root cause: `radicle-lfs-transfer/src/main.rs`'s `download_inner` reported a path under `std::env::temp_dir()` (`/tmp`) back to git-lfs as the "complete" event's path. Git-lfs then does an *atomic* `rename()` from that path into `.git/lfs/objects/...` — it does not fall back to a copy if that fails. On this VPS, `/tmp` and the repository are on different filesystems/mounts, so the rename hits `EXDEV` ("invalid cross-device link") and git-lfs just errors out rather than retrying with a copy. Fixed in `radicle-lfs-transfer` (commit `ac4a27c`): resolve `.git/lfs/tmp` (via `git rev-parse --git-dir`, so this works from a subdirectory too, not just the repo root) and download there instead, mirroring git-lfs's own existing convention for its own internal temp downloads — guaranteed same-filesystem by construction, not by hoping `/tmp` happens to line up. This does reintroduce a `git` binary runtime dependency for `rad-lfs-transfer` (previously dropped once it stopped needing to read/write notes directly) — an acceptable tradeoff, since anything using `rad`/git-lfs at all already requires git to be installed anyway. Submodule pointer bumped in this repo at `a97484c9`. ### Verified live, for real, against production Deployed the fix to the VPS (`blog` has no Forgejo SSH credentials, so copied the fixed `main.rs` directly rather than provisioning new access; rebuilt in place with `~/.cargo/bin`/`~/.radicle/bin` on `PATH`), then actually triggered `blog-deploy.service`: ``` ● blog-deploy.service ... Active: inactive (dead) ... Process: ExecStart=/home/blog/repo/deploy/deploy.sh (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) [blog-deploy] deploying to /srv/mbator.pl... [blog-deploy] deploy complete: 3f650d2d7e9accfba3468a885fc63984e18ceadb ``` Full success, end to end: `git fetch rad` pulled the notes ref for real, `git lfs pull` downloaded and decrypted the private object, the site built, and it deployed. Confirmed the checked-out asset's SHA-256 matches the original exactly (`c5e3b0c1eb2d6e2f3ef98fe74e70fe431986dc2a401b1eae961e175b5a2164ca`). It doesn't appear under `/srv/mbator.pl` because it's deliberately unreferenced by any post — expected, by the smoke test's own design, not a bug.