I’ve had a look at all similar questions. However, I’ve double checked and something strange is definitely happening.
On one server (Solaris with Git 1.8.1) I cloned the Git repository then copied the .git folder into my existing live files. This worked perfectly, I could run
git status
then
git diff [filename]
to check any files that were different.
On another server (Solaris with Git 1.7.6) I’m doing exactly the same however
git diff [filename]
shows nothing, even if the contents of the file is definitely different. I have also tested adding a new file, committing it, and then editing. The same issue, git status shows the file as changed, but git diff shows nothing. If I download the changed file and run a diff locally then I get diff output.