No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path and missing .gitmodules file

just got over the same issue yesterday, after having deleted by hand the entry in .gitmodules (e.g. nano .gitmodules), I had to go with

git rm --cached <pathtomodule>

which returned a message

rm '<pathtomodule>'

then I needed a

git commit -m "delete cached modules"

and validated the submodule deletion.

In addition to the above I also had to remove .gitmodules.

Make sure that there are no submodule sections in .git/config. If there are, remove them.
Do git rm --cached <path_to_submodule>.

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