In case when 'checkRefPermission' returns no error (the most frequent case) 'validRefOperation' is called again. It was properly reworked in [1] but it ended up in the current state as a result of erroneously resolved merge from 2.15 to 2.16 [2]. [1] https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/gerrit/+/228874/2/gerrit-server/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/server/git/receive/ReceiveCommits.java [2] https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/gerrit/+/229113/-1..3/java/com/google/gerrit/server/git/receive/ReceiveCommits.java Change-Id: I1cb7a19ce9b894f2deaf7d677f30ed3b775bbc1b