I am wondering, if you do this:
git fetch origin master;
and the above command succeeds - under what circumstances would the branch "remotes/origin/master" ever be out of sync with the actual remote branch (on Github)?
From my observations, it appears that on occasion "remotes/origin/master" sees local changes that are NOT on the actual remote branch on Github. Which is very weird and I cannot explain it.
I do create branches like this locally:
git fetch origin master;
git branch --no-track "foo" "remotes/origin/master";
git checkout "foo";
and then when I update foo, it seems like sometimes remotes/origin/master reflects the changes made to foo, which is mfing weird.