Conflicts on submodules have no clear resolution and give incorrect suggestion #7806
Description
Description
Suppose your commit graph looks like this:
○ xtwxpvmm [email protected] 2025-10-21 18:58:29 git_head() 3423f0ce
│ Switch to bar branch
│ ○ pzqlukpm [email protected] 2025-10-21 18:57:44 f3914425
├─╯ Switch to foo branch
○ nqzpqpsx [email protected] 2025-10-21 18:54:15 51c47fbc
│ Initial submodule version
○ xwmtkknk [email protected] 2025-10-21 18:49:29 1da518ab
│ Add submodule
Where xt and pz switch the same submodule to a different commit.
Running jj new xt pz to create a merge commit causes a conflict on the submodule - which is fair enough:
$ jj new xt pz
Working copy (@) now at: wqnyzqkp ac85a8d0 (conflict) (empty) (no description set)
Parent commit (@-) : xtwxpvmm 3423f0ce Switch to bar branch
Parent commit (@-) : pzqlukpm f3914425 Switch to foo branch
Added 0 files, modified 1 files, removed 0 files
Warning: 1 of those updates were skipped because there were conflicting changes in the working copy.
Hint: Inspect the changes compared to the intended target with `jj diff --from ac85a8d0e541`.
Discard the conflicting changes with `jj restore --from ac85a8d0e541`.
Warning: There are unresolved conflicts at these paths:
submodule 2-sided conflict including a git submodule
The issue is that I haven't figured out how to recover from this conflict.
The suggestion of jj restore --from ac85a8d0e541 just changes the commit ID of the working copy, and then gives the same suggestion again, getting you into a infinite loop of suggestions:
$ jj restore --from ac85a8d0e541
Working copy (@) now at: wqnyzqkp 935868f1 (conflict) (empty) (no description set)
Parent commit (@-) : xtwxpvmm 3423f0ce Switch to bar branch
Parent commit (@-) : pzqlukpm f3914425 Switch to foo branch
Added 1 files, modified 0 files, removed 0 files
Warning: 1 of those updates were skipped because there were conflicting changes in the working copy.
Hint: Inspect the changes compared to the intended target with `jj diff --from 935868f13ae3`.
Discard the conflicting changes with `jj restore --from 935868f13ae3`.
Warning: There are unresolved conflicts at these paths:
submodule 2-sided conflict including a git submodule
jj st says the submodule has been deleted:
$ jj st
Working copy changes:
D submodule
Working copy (@) : wqnyzqkp 37f41505 (no description set)
Parent commit (@-): xtwxpvmm 3423f0ce Switch to bar branch
Parent commit (@-): pzqlukpm f3914425 Switch to foo branch
I haven't been able to figure out how to get Jujutsu out of this state, and start working on my repo as normal again.
Steps to Reproduce the Problem
I've created a repo with a couple of branches as an easy submodule, but there's nothing specific about the setup of this repo which causes the problem.
Pushing a repo created by following these steps to GitHub, then checking it out with jj git clone, interestingly did not appear to reproduce the exact same issue. I still got a conflict, but didn't get the jj restore --from ... suggestion.
# Create initial repo setup
git init
git submodule add -f https://github.com/AaronC81/2025-10-21-submodule-test.git submodule
git add submodule .gitmodules
git commit -m "Initial commit"
# Create foo branch
git checkout -b foo-branch
cd submodule
git fetch origin foo-branch
git switch foo-branch
cd ..
git add submodule
git commit -m "Switch to foo branch"
# Create bar branch
git switch main
git checkout -b bar-branch
cd submodule
git fetch origin bar-branch
git switch bar-branch
cd ..
git add submodule
git commit -m "Switch to bar branch"
# Use jj to merge
jj git init
jj log # Check change IDs of "switch to foo/bar" branch commits
jj new m n # Replacing with your change IDsExpected Behavior
Jujutsu encounters a conflict on the submodules, and gives me a way to resolve it, possibly with a suggestion which guides me towards this resolution.
Actual Behavior
Jujutsu encounters a conflict, but there is no clear way to resolve it, and the provided suggestion doesn't work.
Specifications
- Platform: Windows 11, macOS Sequoia
- Version: 0.33.0