Why doesn't Git help <command> run the html help in my browser as if it says?

Question

I really like my time with git.

I work on two machines with what I thought were pretty similar settings

On my laptop

When I enter "Git help SomeCommand " from the CLI, my laptop launches the html help in my browser and I can freely read any help item I requested.

On my desktop

CLI reacts as if it is about to do the same, but the browser does not switch and no help starts

What can be done to return my help to the desktop?

Note. I run the bash shell through console2, but this problem seems to affect the default bash shell, which also runs through the context menu in Explorer.

Answer 1

It seems that this error disappeared when I upgraded to the latest msysgit version (1.7.6 from 1.7.3)

Answer 2

I recently had the same problem, the browser did not start. I am running Git 1.9.2.msysgit.0 on Windows 8.1. The default browser is Chrome.

None of the above solutions worked for me. But I just went to the html file in Explorer and double clicked it. Windows then asked which application to use to open it, and I chose chrome.

Regular Git commands now work and open html help files in Chrome.

Answer 3

As stated in the msysgit 445 error report :

Git has its own tool called " git web--browse ", which calls a web browser.

Set the GIT_TRACE environment to 1 to find out which processes are running and with what Command Line.

Thus, this can help debug the problem.

A temporary workaround (which may be ineffective in your case):

As a temporary workaround, you can rename all git-<command>.html to git<command>.html in its <Git>\doc\git\html directory.

git <cmd> --help proposed by Andy seems to have helped, and should have something "reset".

Answer 4

Kick in the dark: I always did git <cmd> --help . It works?

edit: for future reference. This seems to be what fixes the problem of OP. Running git <cmd> --help seemed to clear something, so that it works as it says now. If I knew how / why ...

Answer 5

I have this problem now and the git <cmd> --help method does not fix it.

However, I found that the execution

git help -w <cmd>

It actually opens a help file in a browser, so this is a useful solution.

Answer 6

This setting is current, operational, and convention.

Most likely, because you are using the default Git, which comes with MacOS called Apple Git, which is deprecated.

run git --version and check on the git --version website.

Install Git with brew install git .

To make sure Homebrew installations take precedence over MacOS installations, add the usr / local / bin path to your .zshrc or .bash_profile. export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH . (* Btw, you should use this path also to use Python 3 instead of MacOS Python 2.7 and many other applications).

To make sure all of this is activated, do source ~/.zshrc or source ~/.bash_profile . Or just restart the terminal.

Test it out. git help -w commit . A browser window will open.