[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 1"""
 date="2021-12-22T16:56:18Z"
 content="""
I think I see how this could happen. seekExportContent
checks if remoteAnnexTrackingBranch is set. If it is, 
it tries to list the tree for that branch, and also gets
the export commit for that branch. If either of those actions fail, it
displays the message you saw, the same as if remoteAnnexTrackingBranch
had not been set.

Hmm, I think the most likely reason is that master:devices/motoE5
does not exist yet, so it fails to list the tree for it.

If so, doing a single time `git-annex import --from moto master:devices/motoE5` 
would probably make sync work.

At least the message needs to be improved. It may also be that something
needs to be done to prevent needing to run git-annex import before sync
will work, or the documentation better document that you need to do it,
or the message suggest doing it when this happens.

I do notice that in the [[git-annex-import]] man page, the example
does a single time `git-annex import` of the branch before setting the
git config and using sync.

I've promoted this thread to a bug report.
"""]]
