[ILUG] [Q] Weird(?) GIT problem, "fatal: cannot simplify commit ..."?

[Brian Foster]

  I've got a problem with 'git' that has me puzzled.
 And I'm not a 'git' expert, which isn't helping.

  I recently cloned a (remote) repository:

      git clone git://REMOTE/PLACE

 I do not know the health of that remote repository
 (I am attempting now to find out).  It _should_ be
 healthy, since it is the master repository for an
 embedded Linux project.

  No changes whatsoever have been made to the clone;
 i.e., no adds, commits, et al.  And git-fsck(1)'ing
 the clone does not report any problems.

  However, other git(7) commands, such as git-log(1),
 are not happy:

     $ git-log A/FILE
     error: Could not read 0fed9c2eb14eee47097e1d870fe8e55a6430edeb
     fatal: cannot simplify commit
dd3f3c0636cfd50719c706b030db5473b0270add (because of
0fed9c2eb14eee47097e1d870fe8e55a6430edeb)

 Running 'git-log' on each plain file in the entire
 clone finds a total of c.7 different cases, all of
 the same general form as shown above.  Each case
 happens hundreds or thousands of times.  There is
 not a single plain file in the clone which doesn't
 have the problem!  ;-(

  Generalissimo Google™ does find any matches for
 « git "fatal: cannot simplify commit" » or similar.

  WTF?  I'm completely baffled.  I don't understand
 what the message is (trying to) tell me;  or what's
 wrong;  or what I should do about it.

  Any suggestions, pointers, help?

cheers!
	-blf-

-- 
"How many surrealists does it take to    |  Brian Foster
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