git issue with submodules

[dgtlrift]

I've run into a strange issue with the repo... a little background... I cannot use git urls for the submodules as our firewall blocks access via git (which is really just SSH I believe) so I remapped them to te corresponding URLs in .gitmodules as follows:
jim@jim-VirtualBox:~/project/qemu-xtensa$ cat .gitmodules

[submodule "roms/vgabios"]
    path = roms/vgabios
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/vgabios.git/
[submodule "roms/seabios"]
    path = roms/seabios
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/seabios.git/
[submodule "roms/SLOF"]
    path = roms/SLOF
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/SLOF.git
[submodule "roms/ipxe"]
    path = roms/ipxe
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/ipxe.git
[submodule "roms/openbios"]
    path = roms/openbios
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/openbios.git
[submodule "roms/openhackware"]
    path = roms/openhackware
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/openhackware.git
[submodule "roms/qemu-palcode"]
    path = roms/qemu-palcode
    url = http://github.com/rth7680/qemu-palcode.git
[submodule "roms/sgabios"]
    path = roms/sgabios
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/sgabios.git
[submodule "pixman"]
    path = pixman
    url = http://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/pixman
[submodule "dtc"]
    path = dtc
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/dtc.git
[submodule "roms/u-boot"]
    path = roms/u-boot
    url = http://git.qemu-project.org/git/u-boot.git
jim@jim-VirtualBox:~/project/qemu-xtensa$ 

The issue is after this I get an error with git on a few submodules about fatal: reference is not a tree as follows:

jim@jim-VirtualBox:~/project/qemu-xtensa$ git submodule update
fatal: reference is not a tree: e3d05727a074619fc12d0a67f05cf2c42c875cce
fatal: reference is not a tree: 04186319181298083ef28695a8309028b26fe83c
fatal: reference is not a tree: e2fc41e24ee0ada60fc511d60b15a41b294538be
Unable to checkout 'e3d05727a074619fc12d0a67f05cf2c42c875cce' in submodule path 'roms/SLOF'
Unable to checkout '04186319181298083ef28695a8309028b26fe83c' in submodule path 'roms/ipxe'
Unable to checkout 'e2fc41e24ee0ada60fc511d60b15a41b294538be' in submodule path 'roms/seabios'

I tried digging into this and the closest parallel issue I can find is with the gnulib project. In that project there was a commit to a submodule that was not pushed into the mainline, but the project containing the submodule referenced it...

I am also working off of the ESP8266 machine branch.

[dgtlrift]

Another point, I'm sure this is an issue up-stream of the branch, but I am looking for direction on where to take this if it's not appropriate to fix it here...

[jcmvbkbc]

Not sure what I can do here, but I can confirm that said repositories are different when accessed via git:// vs. via http://

[dgtlrift]

It is strange - but I do have a workaround... since this is a notebook, I just pull the git repos from home. Longer term, I'm trying to get our IT to open git up.
That said - users should be aware upstream of this anomaly and outside the scope of this branch/repo.