Why not all branches are shown on the web ui
Asked by Ruud Siebierski:

Hi,

I cannot find remote branches via the web ui of bitbucket, how is that possible?

When I run locally (i replaced sensitive info with XXXXXXX):

```
$ git branch -r
origin/Change_HMI_look_to_proposal
origin/HS1
origin/IntegrateDSPDLLforDSPboardinterface
origin/XXXXXXX_Lab_task_19696845
origin/XXXXXXX_maintenance_XXXXXXX_C490893
origin/XXXXXXX_maintenance_XXXXXXX_C490893_wrong
origin/XXXXXXX_maintenance_C490165
origin/XXXXXXX_maintenance_C490335
origin/XXXXXXX_maintenance
origin/Voeg_calibratie_waarde_toe_voor_safety_pressure_sensor
origin/delayed_button
origin/develop
origin/develop_XXXXXXX
origin/dotnet_6_0
origin/feature/Alignment_configuration_of_printheads_(relative_printhead_alignment_config)
origin/feature/HMI_Recept_selectie
origin/feature/HMI_manual_spit
origin/feature/OPCUA_proxy_for_integration_testing_without_PLC
origin/feature/XXXXXXX_output_Job_queue_instead_of_PDF_input
origin/feature/XXXXXXX_remote_interface_with_XXXXXXX_SDK
origin/feature/Toevoegen_typicals_voor_inkflow_en_encoder_multipliers
origin/feature/bergstein-ink-module
origin/feature/exercise_head
origin/feature/jobqueue
origin/feature/opcua_interface
origin/feature/user_management
origin/hotfix/UAC_control_fixes
origin/master
```

In the web UI, all branches selected:

![edit Screenshot 2022-12-08 121237.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/229578i37B12658A3F16F08/image-dimensions/361x367?v=v2 "edit Screenshot 2022-12-08 121237.png")

How is this possible ?


Answers:
author: Ruud Siebierski
body: The solution was to execute:

```
git fetch --prune
```

I tried to remove the old branches by using push --delete, but got an error.

```
$ git push origin --delete origin/feature/user_management
error: unable to delete 'origin/feature/user_management': remote ref does not exist
```

Started googling, and stumbled on [this post on stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35941566/git-says-remote-ref-does-not-exist-when-i-delete-remote-branch) .

Thanks,

Ruud


author: Ben
body: Hey Ruud,

The branches that are missing from the UI - are those still actively used branches?

When using the "All" filter, Bitbucket won't show branches that have been deleted in the Bitbucket UI, or branches closed with the "close branch" checkbox when merging a pull request.

You'd have to re-push those from your local repository if you really want them using

```
git push --all origin
```

Cheers!

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)

comments: author: Ruud Siebierski
body: Hi Ben,

The missing branches are not active anymore.

1. I would expect if I delete them via the webUI, they are also deleted from the git repo, isn't that the case?

2. We do not use pull requests at this moment, but do use git flow. How can I find "closed branches" ?

Actually, the reason I stumbled upon this. is that I wanted to cleanup/remove old branches. But now I don't know where to do this. Via the git prompt? I wanted to do it via the webUI, but that seems not possible, because they are not showing.

BTW; I'm not a git expert by far, just trying to use it ;)

Thanks,

Ruud


author: Ben
body: Hey Ruud,

That is not the case - essentially when you create a branch in the UI, it is not present in your local repo until you fetch the branch. Fetching is performed by git pull.

Generally, to view closed branches - you would select "Merged branches" from the dropdown in the UI.

I would suggest reading the following documentation related to GIT branch, this will give information on how to delete/clean these up:  
<https://www.atlassian.com/git/tutorials/using-branches>

Cheers!

- Ben (Bitbucket Cloud Support)


author: Ruud Siebierski
body: Hi Ben,

Thank you. Probably this step:

```
git push origin --delete crazy-experiment
```

to delete the temp branch on the server was not performed, after the branches were pushed.

I still think it is strange I cannot see all the branches in the web ui, but I guess I can do the cleanup of the old branches now, and know how to work in the future.

So thanks.

Ruud


Tags: bitbucket-cloud

cloud