title: git clone fails silently
body: <p>To be more precise, I believe "git clone" succeeds, but immediately deletes all the files in my resulting local repo. A similar question can be found <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10361322/git-status-for-cloned-repository-shows-file-deleted">here</a>, but I couldn't think of a way to phrase my twist on the question as an answer, so here I am.</p>
  
  <p>Here's the rundown on the specifics of my scenario:</p>
  
  <p>I have a repository on github. I am able to clone this repository as anyone would expect using git on Ubuntu 12.04. The problem arises when I try to clone the wiki (github makes this accessible via <a href="https://github.com/&lt;owner&gt;/&lt;repository&gt;.wiki.git" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://github.com/&lt;owner&gt;/&lt;repository&gt;.wiki.git</a>). My resulting local copy is empty. Upon running "git status" I notice that the contents of the repo were deleted by some entity immediately after cloning.</p>
  
  <p>On branch master</p>
  
  <p>Changes to be committed:</p>
  
  <p>(use "git reset HEAD ..." to unstage)</p>
  
  <p>deleted: &lt;filename&gt;</p>
  
  <p>...And so on for all the rest of the pages in my wiki.</p>
  
  <p>"git branch -a" returns the same thing for me as for the other guy:</p>
  
  <p>*master</p>
  
  <p>remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master</p>
  
  <p>remotes/origin/master</p>
  
  <p><strong>update 1</strong></p>
  
  <p>It's true I was not aware of the difference between the staging area and the working directory, but it seems that was not the issue. On the other hand, it may have revealed a bit more of what is wrong.</p>
  
  <p>I forgot to mention that when I first clone the repository, I get the message "cannot stat &lt;long_filename&gt;: filename too long"</p>
  
  <p>When I run "git reset" all of the deletions are listed under "unstaged changes after reset:". The odd one out is &lt;long_filename&gt; which is listed as a merge instead of a deletion. Still, no files are visible in the directory I cloned to after the reset.</p>
  
  <p><strong>update 2</strong></p>
  
  <p>I can view all the wiki entries that should be present by using gitk from the cloned folder, but I am quite certain that the files are not present in a raw format anywhere on my filesystem, otherwise "find / -name &lt;filename&gt; 2>/dev/null" should return some useful output.</p>
  
  <p><strong>update 3</strong></p>
  
  <p>Apparently one of my filenames is too long for git to manage. Checking out the repo again after cloning it got all the files but that one:
  <code>error: unable to create file &lt;filename&gt;.md (File name too long)</code></p>