Git pull error: unable to create temporary sha1 filename

Question

I've got a small git repo setup with the only real purpose to be able to develop locally on several machines (work, home, laptop). Thus I have one branch and I commit/push once I leave a computer, pull once I sit down at the next. Has worked fine, up to now that is. Now when I pull on my 'live test' machine, I get the following:

remote: Counting objects: 38, done.
remote: Compressiremote: ng objects: 100% (20/20), done.
remote: Total 20 (delta 17), reused 0 (delta 0)
error: unable to create temporary sha1 filename .git/objects/ed: File exists

fatal: failed to write object
fatal: unpack-objects failed

Searching around the net the only real answer I could find was the following: http://marc.info/?l=git&m=122720741928774&w=2 which basically states that this is a bogus error that's on top of the pile and thus says nothing about what really is wrong.

Where do I go from here to find out what is wrong?

Edit: Removed the local copy and re-cloned

Answer 1

For what it's worth, when I had this problem—but when committing—I tried git-repack and git-gc, but neither worked. I got a permission denied error, which led me to chown the entire repo recursively to the user I expected it to be, and I could then commit/push/pull with no problem.