Fails when onboardingBranch does not exist

[sklemmer]

What Renovate type, platform and version are you using?
self-hosted Renovate 23.100.5 as Kubernetes Cron job with Gitlab

Describe the bug
Renovate seems to fail when the onboarding Branch does not exist.
Furthermore it deletes orphaned branches, which happens to be the onboarding Branch

Relevant debug logs

# FirstRun
ERROR: Repository has unknown error (repository=sklemmer/mirror)                
        "err": {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
          "task": {                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
            "concatStdErr": true,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
            "format": "utf-8",
            "commands": [
            "fetch",
            "origin",
            "refs/heads/renovate-*:refs/remotes/origin/renovate-*",
            "--depth=2",
            "--force"
            ]
      },
"message": "warning: redirecting to https://gitlab.xxx.de/sklemmer/mirror.git/",
"stack": "Error: warning: redirecting to https://gitlab.xxx.de/sklemmer/mirror.git/
at GitExecutorChain.onFatalException (/usr/src/app/node_modules/simple-git/src/lib/runners/git-executor-chain.ts:66:77)
at GitExecutor
}
# Second run
INFO: Deleting orphan branch (repository=sklemmer/mirror, branch=renovate-config)

To Reproduce

1. Create a repository in gitlab (in our case its self-hosted)
2. Run renovate and onboard repository
   => should result in a branch renovate-config and the creation of renovate.json
   Note: we delete branches once they have been merged so renovate-config gets deleted
3. run renovate again
   => results in error, see the message from the first run
4. to avoid getting an error create a branch renovate-config from master
5. run renovate again
   => will delete orphan branch but runs successfully, see message from the second run
6. run again
   => error appears again because onboarding branch does not exist and the commands fail

Additional context

Setting "pruneStaleBranches": "false", will not remove those Branches and everything works as expected

[rarkins]

I've converted this to a discussion as you've left out far too much information for us to be able to answer, and "See logs" is not an appropriate answer for how to reproduce.

[sklemmer]

sorry i got carried away when i wrote the issue. I edited my original post and added steps to reproduce the behavior. Hops this helps

[rarkins]

We still need your full config. Please provide the one that's logged. renovate-config is not the default branch so I know you've change at least that. And do you know why there would be a message warning: redirecting to x? That's coming from git/gitlab, not Renovate directly.

[sklemmer]

My current Config (after fix) is

{
    "endpoint": "https://gitlab.xxx.de/api/v4",
    "git_author": "sklemmer",
    "platform": "gitlab",
    "logLevel" : "info",
    "repositories": [ ],
    "trustLevel": "high",
    "onboardingBranch": "renovate-configure",
    "branchPrefix": "renovate-",
    "autodiscover": "true",
    "autodiscoverFilter": "sklemmer/**",
    "pruneStaleBranches": "false",
    "hostRules": [   ]
  }

With ENV Variables

      - RENOVATE_PAGINATE_ALL=true
      - RENOVATE_TOKEN=xxxx

Renovate outputs this as

 WARN: Config needs migrating
       "originalConfig": {
         "endpoint": "https://gitlab.xxx.de/api/v4",
         "git_author": "sklemmer",
         "platform": "gitlab",
         "logLevel": "info",
         "repositories": [],
         "trustLevel": "high",
         "onboardingBranch": "renovate-configure",
         "branchPrefix": "renovate-",
         "autodiscover": "true",
         "autodiscoverFilter": "sklemmer/**",
         "pruneStaleBranches": "false",
         "hostRules": [   ]
       },
       "migratedConfig": {
         "endpoint": "https://gitlab.xxx.de/api/v4",
         "git_author": "sklemmer",
         "platform": "gitlab",
         "logLevel": "info",
         "repositories": [],
         "trustLevel": "high",
         "onboardingBranch": "renovate-configure",
         "branchPrefix": "renovate-",
         "autodiscover": true,
         "autodiscoverFilter": "sklemmer/**",
         "pruneStaleBranches": false,
         "hostRules": [  ]
       }

And do you know why there would be a message warning: redirecting to x?

Not really. As far as I know HTTP is redirected to HTTPS but as I configured renovate to use https API directly I don't know.

[viceice]

1. Please add LOG_LEVEL=debug to your env to see more verbose
2. pruneStaleBranches=false: remove quotes, it's a boolean not a string
3. post debug logs here

[rarkins]

The command that fails in the first log you provided if this git fetch:

renovate/lib/util/git/index.ts

Lines 174 to 191 in c8cc257

	/*
	* When we initially clone, we clone only the default branch so how no knowledge of other branches existing.
	* By calling this function once the repo's branchPrefix is known, we can fetch all of Renovate's branches in one command.
	*/
	export async function setBranchPrefix(branchPrefix: string): Promise<void> {
	config.branchPrefix = branchPrefix;
	// If the repo is already cloned then set branchPrefix now, otherwise it will be called again during syncGit()
	if (gitInitialized) {
	logger.debug('Setting branchPrefix: ' + branchPrefix);
	const ref = `refs/heads/${branchPrefix}*:refs/remotes/origin/${branchPrefix}*`;
	try {
	await git.fetch(['origin', ref, '--depth=2', '--force']);
	} catch (err) /* istanbul ignore next */ {
	checkForPlatformFailure(err);
	throw err;
	}
	}
	}

The redirecting error is coming from your GitLab server and I'm not sure why that is. The lack of full logs here doesn't help either.
The command being run is git fetch origin refs/heads/renovate-*:refs/remotes/origin/renovate-* --depth=2 --force - maybe you can find logs on your server for why it's being rejected.

I don't think that the second run behavior really matters if the first run is producing such an error.