git clone - fatal eof

This is a super annoying problem that pops up when I am cloning large repositories and my connection is a bit slow.

Part way through the clone git will fail.

    
      FATAL ERROR: Remote side unexpectedly closed network connection
      fetch-pack: unexpected disconnect while reading sideband packet
      fatal: early EOF
      fatal: fetch-pack: invalid index-pack output
    
  

This fix on StackOverflow somewhat works for me if I do a set of git-fetch commands gradually increasing the checkout depth.

    
      git clone --depth 1 --no-single-branch $REPO_URI$
      git fetch --deepen=32
      git fetch --deepen=32
      git fetch --deepen=32
      git fetch --deepen=32
      # etc. until an attempt at unshallow succeeds.
      # experiment with the depth value (32/64/128/256/etc).
      git fetch --unshallow
    
  

It is important to include the --no-single-branch arguement. Otherwise, git will only track the main branch and it's a fiddle to get things setup to get all the remote branches when doing a git fetch. StackOverflow has a thread about the exact problem.