GitButler branch disappeared when I tried to squash its 2 commits together

[fredsherbet]

Version

0.19.1

Operating System

macOS

Distribution Method

dmg (Mac OS - Apple Silicon)

Describe the issue

I tried to squash 2 commits together, and the branch disappeared. On the command line, I see:

but status
Initiated a background sync...
╭┄zz [unstaged changes] 
┊     no changes
┊
┊╭┄ []  
┊●   d9e315e Add AI wording to Gearset Agent changelog  
┊●   82aea19 Add Gearset Agent changelog entry for Observabilit  
├╯
┊
┊╭┄cl [claude-code-styling]  
┊●   6e3e00d Add shared code styling rules for Gearset C#  
├╯
┊
┊╭┄re [observability-integration-test-ref]  
┊●   3e8bd16 Add OpenTelemetry tags and tracking for email noti  
┊◐   761273b Ditch some nullability  
┊◐   4d523b6 Add subscriptions project reference and enable Err  
┊◐   a903690 Fix null CredentialToken in OrgLimits integration   
┊◐   8b8b096 Add observability org limits integration tests  
┊◐   d2fb7a4 Add Observability project reference to integration  
├╯
┊
┊╭┄sc [sc-46973/observability-email-notifications/5/integration-test]  
┊◐   1fb2e37 TODO check whether this commit adds anything usefu  
┊◐   1c63bd6 Unignore and set inbox Active for email notificati  
┊◐   1c9072e Add integration tests for email notification metho  
┊◐   1d0da73 Add integration test for observability email notif  
┊◐   e190bcd Add mail test harness and in-memory mail client  
├╯
┊
┊● e368639 (upstream) ⏫ 63 new commits (checked 17 seconds ago)
├╯ dc66164 (common base) [origin/master] 2026-02-12 Merge pull request #56987 from Gearset/graphql-ret

The branch is still there, but the name has been blanked out

How to reproduce (Optional)

Here are the steps I went through

• Created a new branch (using claude code on the CLI)
• Added a commit
• Renamed the branch from mr-branch-5 to something more meaningful (using GitButler UI)
• Added a second commit (using claude code on the CLI)
• Clicked and dragged the second commit to merge it with the first commit (using GitButler UI)

The whole branch disappeared from the UI. I used but status and can see the branch does still exist.

Expected behavior (Optional)

No response

Relevant log output (Optional)

I'll send logs via the app, linking to this issue

[fredsherbet]

To recover, I was trying to work out how to rename the branch via the CLI... but couldn't figure out the command (usability issue?)

In the end I tried but undo, and that recovered the branch, and I could squash, and it was all fine :)

[mtsgrd]

@Byron we received logs and the graph through the in-app feedback modal, and just want to mention here the graph file is ~7mb of data. I wasn't able to parse it with graphviz, but I think the size alone is indicative of some deeper issue here.

[Byron]

Thanks for reporting and for all the details!

It's strange that but undo and but squash then worked as expected. I would have thought it fails permanently.

Besides that, it's hard to imagine what's going wrong here as two commits turning into one should be no problem, ever, as long as the commit is reachable from the workspace reference/merged and the ref still points to it.

@mtsgrd Bigger graphs aren't indicative of a problem at all, they are just inconvenient to handle. However, I think I'd still be able to 'see' the connections I am interested in (like in the matrix) if I had the file.

[Byron]

I took a look at the graph and looked up the line with the anonymous stack:

    11 [ label = "" , shape = box, label = ":11[1]:anon: ·d9e315e (⌂|🏘|000001)\l·82aea19 (⌂|🏘|000001)\l", fontname = Courier, margin = 0.2]

What I expected to see is something akin to this, where there is a commit with multiple references that couldn't be disambiguated, right next to it.

But that's not the case, so there really are no references left after the squash.

They are probably still pointing to their old locations.
And since this is happening in old code, probably everything is possible, and I don't think there is anything we can do without a local reproduction. And that might not be easy to come by as there can be many, even transient factors, that play into that.

gitbutler/crates/gitbutler-branch-actions/src/squash.rs

Lines 57 to 63 in c9b1312

	fn do_squash_commits(
	ctx: &mut Context,
	stack_id: StackId,
	mut source_ids: Vec<git2::Oid>,
	destination_id: git2::Oid,
	perm: &mut RepoExclusive,
	) -> Result<git2::Oid> {

Let me CC @Caleb-T-Owens in case I am missing something here. In any case, the new implementation of this will work.