recent change in git.git/master broke my repos

I have echo "ref: refs/remotes/origin/master" >.git/refs/heads/upstream
so that my daily update script can go:

   git-fetch
   if [ repo is on master, and is not dirty ];
      git-merge upstream
   fi

Yesterday that worked.

Today I get a rash of:

  fatal: Couldn't find remote ref refs/remotes/origin/master

from my git-fetch.

Is git-fetch broken, or am I?  And if it's me, how do I do what I
want instead?

And when are we gonna get "fast forward only" for git-merge?

-- 
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