title: git: fatal: Cannot switch branch to a non-commit '12382'
body: <p>Someone else on my team created a new git branch, committed and pushed to the usual remote that we work with.  When I try to check out this branch, I get this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>% git checkout 12382
  fatal: Cannot switch branch to a non-commit '12382'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I have not had trouble checking out other branches from this repository; tried checking another one out right after this (one that I did not have a local copy of), and it worked fine.</p>
  
  <p>I tried building a server with this branch on our Go pipeline, it worked fine - which means the server was successful in checking out that branch.</p>
  
  <p>Tried this to check the status of things:</p>
  
  <pre><code>% git remote show origin
  * remote origin
    Fetch URL: git@gitlab.mycompany.com:mycompany/myrepository.git
    Push  URL: git@gitlab.mycompany.com:mycompany/myrepository.git
    HEAD branch: stage
    Remote branches:
      10112                     tracked
      10198                     tracked
      10678                     tracked
  ...
      12382                     tracked    &lt;&lt;&lt;---
  ...
    Local branches configured for 'git pull':
  ...
    Local refs configured for 'git push':
  ...
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Could anyone suggest how to fix this?  What went wrong?</p>