Why call git branch –unset-upstream to fixup?

I’m more of a novice when it comes to advanced operations in git. I maintain my blog using the blogging framework Octopress. Though Octopress is not under any development since 2011, it serves my purpose well and so I haven’t thought of changing anything so far.

FYI, my blog is hosted on Github Pages.

Today, while working on a new post, git status showed the following message:

On branch source
Your branch is based on 'origin/master', but the upstream is gone.
  (use "git branch --unset-upstream" to fixup)

The same message repeated for all the subsequent commands such as git add ., git commit -m 'message' and git push origin source.

  • What does the message mean?
  • Is something broken?
  • If yes, what?
  • Do I need to fix it?

If possible, please point me to a pdf/web article where I can read up on this and understand it for future.

More details:

bash-3.2$ git branch -a
* source
  remotes/octopress/2.1
  remotes/octopress/HEAD -> octopress/master
  remotes/octopress/gh-pages
  remotes/octopress/linklog
  remotes/octopress/master
  remotes/octopress/refactor_with_tests
  remotes/octopress/rubygemcli
  remotes/octopress/site
  remotes/origin/source

Please let me know if more information is needed. Thanks.

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