No submodule mapping found in .gitmodule for a path that's not a submodule

No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path 'OtherLibrary/MKStore' when

$ git submodule update --init

I didn't know why the error occur. After spending a minute and found the answer in stackoverflow.

$ git rm --cached OtherLibrary/MKStore

and then update the submodule again. It's working fine.

http://en.saturngod.net/no-submodule-mapping-found-in-gitmodules


Following rajibchowdhury's answer (upvoted), use git rm command which is advised is for removing the special entry in the index indicating a submodule (a 'folder' with a special mode 160000).

If that special entry path isn't referenced in the .gitmodule (like 'Classes/Support/Three20' in the original question), then you need to remove it, in order to avoid the "No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path" error message.

You can check all the entries in the index which are referencing submodules:

git ls-files --stage | grep 160000

Previous answer (November 2010)

It is possible that you haven't declared your initial submodule correctly (i.e. without any tail '/' at the end, as described in my old answer, even though your .gitmodule has paths which looks ok in it).

This thread mentions:

do you get the same error when running 'git submodule init' from a fresh clone?
If so, you have something wrong.

If you have no submodules, delete .gitmodules, and any references to submodules in .git/config, and ensure the Pikimal dir does not have a .git dir in it.
If that fixes the problem, check in and do the same on your cruise working copy.

Obviously, don't delete your main .gitmodules file, but look after other extra .gitmodules files in your working tree.


Still in the topic of "incorrect submodule initialization", Jefromi mentions submodules which actually are gitlinks.

See How to track untracked content? in order to convert such a directory to a real submodule.


When I use SourceTree to do the stuff, it will spit out this message.
The message that I encountered:

git -c diff.mnemonicprefix=false -c core.quotepath=false -c credential.helper=sourcetree submodule update --init --recursive
No submodule mapping found in .gitmodules for path 'SampleProject/SampleProject'
Completed with errors, see above

My scenario is I misapplied the project directory the contains .git folder.
SourceTree regarded this folder as git submodule, but actually not.

My solution is use command line to remove it.

$ git rm -r SampleProject --cached
$ git commit -m "clean up folders"

remove the garbage in git and keep it clean.