Git stash pop- needs merge, unable to refresh index

Solution 1:

First, check git status.
As the OP mentions,

The actual issue was an unresolved merge conflict from the merge, NOT that the stash would cause a merge conflict.

That is where git status would mention that file as being "both modified"

Resolution: Commit the conflicted file.

Solution: in this case, simply add and commit your local file.

You can find a similar situation 4 days ago at the time of writing this answer (March 13th, 2012) with this post: "‘Pull is not possible because you have unmerged files’":

julita@yulys:~/GNOME/baobab/help/C$ git stash pop
help/C/scan-remote.page: needs merge
unable to refresh index

What you did was to fix the merge conflict (editing the right file, and committing it):
See "How do I fix merge conflicts in Git?"

What the blog post's author did was:

julita@yulys:~/GNOME/baobab/help/C$ git reset --hard origin/mallard-documentation
HEAD is now at ff2e1e2 Add more steps for optional information for scanning.

I.e aborting the current merge completely, allowing the git stash pop to be applied.
See "Aborting a merge in Git".

Those are your two options.

Solution 2:

Here's how I solved the issue:

• git status (see a mix of files from a previous stash, pull, stash pop, and continued work.)
• git stash (see the needs merge issue)
• git add . (add the files so my work locally resolves my own merged)
• git stash (no error)
• git pull (no error)
• git stash pop (no error and continue working)

Solution 3:

I was having this issue, then resolving the conflict and commiting, and doing git stash pop again was restoring the same stash again (causing the same conflict :-( ).

What I had to do (WARNING: back up your stash first) is git stash drop to get rid of it.