diff --git a/lib/workers/branch/get-updated.js b/lib/workers/branch/get-updated.js
index e0a22028ce7ee0553783a12ba818a5f89bfd309a..97ab319a95391f408dbd022c0cc14fd11d8fcd88 100644
--- a/lib/workers/branch/get-updated.js
+++ b/lib/workers/branch/get-updated.js
@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ async function getUpdatedPackageFiles(config) {
             parentBranch: undefined,
           });
         }
-        throw new Error('Error updating branch content and cannot rebase');
+        logger.debug({ existingContent, upgrade }, 'Error updating file');
+        throw new Error('update-failure');
       }
       if (newContent !== existingContent) {
         if (config.parentBranch) {
diff --git a/lib/workers/branch/index.js b/lib/workers/branch/index.js
index 46cf035bbacc2c9656d9cb7bd4d125f070db068b..632f71eb43d5eb3750bf40b785f02caaafb3d526 100644
--- a/lib/workers/branch/index.js
+++ b/lib/workers/branch/index.js
@@ -277,7 +277,9 @@ async function processBranch(branchConfig, prHourlyLimitReached, packageFiles) {
       logger.debug('Passing disk-space error up');
       throw err;
     }
-    if (
+    if (err.message === 'update-failure') {
+      logger.warn('Error updating branch: update failure');
+    } else if (
       err.message !== 'registry-failure' &&
       err.message !== 'platform-failure'
     ) {