When working with Git, you may run into the issue/error message couldn't find remote ref master when attempting to perform a pull. This message can be a little frustrating, because when you look at the remote repository, everything most likely can be seen just fine.

The answer to this problem is that this error means your system couldn't find the git repo details within a remote git repository. This is distinct from the error message when the repository cannot be found at all, does not appear to be a git repository.This is most often caused by inconsistent permissions within the .git folder. Check that you have permission to all of the files in your .git folder in the remote repo, using whatever combination of chmod and chown to ensure you have full permissions from the repository attempting to pull into, on the repository you are attempting to pull from.