Re: Possible bug: Git submodules can get into broken state

Chris Wilson [off-list ref] writes:

They fixed it by checking in a rectified .gitmodules file.

In the mean time, I ran git submodule init, and now I've ended up in a
situation where git submodule update doesn't work, and there's no
submodule command to fix it, so I have to remove the broken submodules
from .git/config.

quoted

and the configuration mechanism is the way to use custom URL in
place of it.

I don't want to use a custom URL, I want to use the URL which is now
in .gitmodules.

Then don't call it a "custom URL" ;-).

Isn't your problem that the old, broken one is now in your config,
and you want to update that with a corrected one?  How you learned
which one is correct does not really matter---you may learned it out
of band by looking at upstream's gitweb, or by running "git fetch"
in the superproject again and looking at the updated .gitmodules
file.  The configuration mechanism has a way to update that entry.

Could submodule init at least change the URLs of submodules which are
not checked out? (e.g. because they couldn't be)?

Perhaps "submodule deinit" might be what you are looking for, but I
dunno.