This has to do with how Git is configured with GPG signing process. This is an issue on Windows computers, as the GPG implementation is weird.

There are a few potential ways to fix this issue. I would recommend turning off the signing with GPG.

Here are the steps to disable this option

Go to VSCode preferences - Settings

Type this into the search bar at the top to find the setting: gpg commit

Make sure this option is not checked. This is the option that tells VSCode to use PGP while pushing to GitHub: Enables commit signing with GPG or X.509

Close out of the Settings tab.

This error occurs when you have GitHub setup on one account and you try to use another account and GitHub auto logs you into the old account with VSCode. This process is using the Windows Credential Manager.

This error is because Git was previously configured for another user account on the computer using the global settings. There are a a few solutions.

Remove Windows Credential Manager from auto logging into GitHub

This is the preferred method if the account in question is not being used anymore

There are two part to this. If you only do one of them it will work. It is recommended to do both parts.

Go to GitHub and log into the old account and click on the user profile picture in the top right of the web page. Select Settings

On the left navigation menu, select Password and Authentication

Then click on the Authorized Oauth Apps tab

Find teh GitHub for VSCode line

Click on the 3 dots to the left of GitHub for VSCode

Click the Revoke option

This will force VSCode to re-authenticate with GitHub.

Part two of this process is to go into Windows Credential Manager and remove the github.com auto login credentials.

Click the start menu button and type "Windows Credential" and you will see the link to this appear in the start menu. Click on that link and you will see something like this

Find the entry for github.com, then click on the arrow button on the right side then select the option REMOVE. This will remove that from Windows Credential Manager.

The next set is to logout of the user account in VSCode. You do that by clicking on the PRofiles icon and then highlight the name and then clicking on Sign Out for that user.

Restart VSCode and then try and publish the repository again.

This occurs when Git is installed and told to use the Windows Credential Manager and not the Git Credential Manager Core option which is the new default. It may be worth reinstalling Git and make sure that the Git Credential Manager Core option is selected as in this image.

There is an issue where the GitHub pages do not initialize the first time. This means you must re-initialize a push to GitHub and then recreate the pages setup.

1. Go to the pages setup page and change the branch to NONE

   

   Click Save

2. Go to VSCode and push to GitHub

   You can do an empty push by typing the following commands in the command prompt

                               git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger rebuild"
   
                               git push
                           

3. Go back to GitHub Pages and recreate the pages setup.

   Once you have clicked save on the pages setup, click on the Actions tab

   

   Watch the top entry until the icon to the left turns blue or green with a check mark. That means it is complete. The red circle with an X means that it failed.

   

   You will notice that the process will take longer than 1 minute. This is due to some change GitHub has made on the server due to new features that are being added. Even publishing the push/sync from VSCode takes as long as 5 min on very busy days.

   If the user gets a failed again, check the spelling of the folders and file names. This process seems to fail if the user has spaces in the folder and filenames and sometimes if there are underscores in these names.

If the user gets this error, they missed that step in the configuration of Git. It is found in the installation steps of Git for Windows.

Open the terminal or command prompt. This can be the one inside VSCode

Type each of these commands into the command prompt/Terminal window

                        git config −global user.name 'github user name'

                        git config −global user.email 'email address used on github'

                        git config --global core.ignorecase false

                    

Try to push to GitHub

If you still have issues, then contact someone for help

There are a few reasons as to why this will occur. There are a couple of things to try.

1. Open a terminal/command window and try to push to GitHub using the command line

   git push

   You may get an error that says something like this (It will look different on the various OS's):

                                   There is no tracking information for the current branch.
   
                                   Please specify which branch you want to merge with.
   
                                   See git-pull(1) for details
   
   
                                   git push <remote>  <branch>
   
   
                                   If you wish to set tracking information for this branch you can do so with:
   
   
                                   git push --set-upstream origin master
                               

   If you get that error at the command line type in the command

   git push −set-upstream origin master

   Then do a git push command

   You may be prompted to authenticate with GitHub again.

   Once the push/sync is complete, you will need to restart VSCode and the GitHub controls within VSCode should work again.

2. The other reasons why this process will hang are too numerous and hard to give instructions on how to overcome in this document. This will require more research with debug logs to see if there is a reason for the hang.

User is trying to run git commands at the command prompt and Windows is displaying the following Windows System error

The instructions to fix this are specific to the version of Windows that is being run. Here are the basic steps: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/allow-an-app-to-access-controlled-folders-b5b6627a-b008-2ca2-7931-7e51e912b034

Use controlled folder access

Controlled folder access in Windows Security reviews the apps that can make changes to files in protected folders and block unauthorized or unsafe apps from accessing or changing files in those folders.

1. Select Start> Settings> Update & Security> Windows Security> Virus & threat protection.
2. Under Virus & threat protection settings, select Manage settings .
3. Under Controlled folder access , select Manage Controlled folder access .
4. Switch the Controlled folder access setting to On or Off .

There is an option to allow just one program to run in this Controlled Folder Access and you can select git.exe from the recently blocked programs.

If you look at the Windows Notifications, you may see an error like this.

This is the same step as above for the same error. Microsoft has a few diverse ways to present this message. It will also be logged in to the System Logs.

A few reasons I have seen this curl 18 error:

• Too many files - This is usually related to #3
• Anti-virus software
• Number of files and sizes exceeds the buffer size for git. See this article: https://9to5answer.com/git-push-gives-error-rpc-failed-curl-18-transfer-closed-with-outstanding-read-data-remaining
• Speed of internet can also cause this issue. https://debugah.com/git-clone-error-rpc-failed-curl-18-transfer-closed-with-outstanding-read-data-remaining-18415/
• Running Homebrew on a MAC or Linux machine. There are known issues at times with this error in Homebrew. Homebrew is not supported for students and they will have to find the answers on their own as Homebrew has its own command structure to work with Git & GitHub.

This error has to do with the amount of data being sent to GitHub. On bad internet connections, you can only send enough data that GitHub will keep the connection open. Bad internet connections will drop with this error. There are other reasons this error can occur, but this is the only reason for this error with the data we use.

If you type the git add <foldername> and get an error that looks like this

Git Error - 'main/' does not have a commit checked out

The issue is mot likely that the folder has been initialized as a git repository. Go into that folder and look for the hidden folder/directory called .git

Remove the .git folder in the sub-directory

Updates were rejected because the tip of your current branch is behind its remote counterpart. Integrate the remote change (e.g. 'git pull …') before pushing again.

The reason for this error is that the code on GitHub was edited and the user did not issue a git pull command before making any changes to their local machine before they started to edit on the local machine.

To fix this error there are a few options.

1. The first and usually the easiest for those new to Git/GitHub is to recreate the repository. You have to unpublish the site, delete the repository, delete the .git folder on the local and then push back to a Public Repository on GitHub.

2. The preferred way is to stash the changes, pull from the server, merge your stashed changes into the update from the server and then push back to the server.

   Run these commands:

                                   git stash
   
                                   git pull
   
                                   git stash pop <− This will apply your saved changes
   
                                   git commit -m “message”
   
                                   git push
   
                                   git stash clear <− This will remove the stashed files from memory. Stashed files stay until removed.
   
                               

3. You can try and issue a 'git push -f' command at the command line and see it will go through. This is still not a guarantee that it will push.

4. You can create a new branch and push to the new brach. You can then go to the fork and use the built in process on GitHub to validate the change in the fork and merge back to the master/main branch. (This is the way most companies do development)

   Create a new branch in VSCode

   

   Give the branch a new name

   

   Commit and push the new branch

   

   Open GitHub repository

   You should see a message like this

   

   Click the Compare & Pull Request button

   You will see a screen like this

   

   You can type a comment in box where it says Leave a Comment.

   Click the Create pull request button

   Hopefully you will see this message

   

   If you see a message that state there is a conflict, you will have to fix the conflict using one of the options suggested.

   Once the conflict is resolved and you get this message, click the Merge pull Request button

   You will then be asked to confirm the merge

   

   Click the Confirm Merge button

   Once the merge is successful you will see this message. Go ahead and delete the branch by clicking the Delete Branch button

   

   If you do not delete the branch you will always push to this branch from VSCode by default now.

   Go back to VSCode

   change back to the master branch by using the Checkout To option

   

   Select the Main/Master branch. Go by the name and not the number.

   

   To remove the local branch open the command prompted

   Run this git command at the command prompt

   git pull −prune

   You will see something like this if it works

   

   git branch −d <branch name>

   

   This screenshot shows what happens if you have not switched to the main/master branch first and the branch has not been fully merged. These entries are denoted with the red dot to the left of the command that was run.

   You must CHECKOUT the main/master branch first

   You can force the delete by using the -D option. Lowercase −d for the check and uppercase −D to force the delete.

   You should now only have the one branch on your local computer. This is the preferred option for most classes at school. YOu will have multiple branches if you are working as a group on a single project.

User gets this prompt every time they go to sync with GitHub

You have to install Microsoft .Net 4.7.2 to get rid of this prompt and to have Git remember your GitHub credentials.

If internet connectivity is an issue, then use this URL to go directly to the download page and download the off-line installer. Install the software, reboot the computer and try to sync with Github.

You should not be prompted for this again. If you do then the install did not work correctly.

If you get the following message

You must update Windows to at least Windows 10 version 1607. You can tell which version you have boy going to the About option in the Windows Settings.

This post on Microsoft Support site shows you how to find which version of Windows you are running. Find operating system info in Windows 10

Error when running git --version on MAC

When running the "git --version" or "git version" on a Mac, you may encounter this error:

xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

To fix this error you must run the following command in a terminal window on the Mac.

xcode-select --install

The other way to install these tools is to goto the Apple Developer software page and install from there: https://developer.apple.com/download/more/

Look for the: "Command Line Tools for Xcode" with the version number that matches your OS version number and does not contain the word 'BETA' as part of the filename. It will look something like this screenshot.

Once the software has been installed make sure to restart the VSCode application by clicking on the menu and select QUIT, (-q)

If you open the Show Command Output you will see the following error: git failed to load library libcurl-4.dll

To resolve this error, you must find the libcurl-4.dll file on the system and make a copy of it to the C:\Program Files\Git\bin\ folder

for some reason even though Windows generally has the folder that this file can be found in the Path Environmental settings, Git does not always see it and cannot load it.

Most Windows systems has this file located in C:\Windows and this folder is part of the Path setting on Windows computers.

Back to Top

This error may come up even after you have install the Git software. If that is the case follow these steps.

Open the Extensions tab.

Click on the 3 dots in the top right corner.

Select Views then Disabled extensions

You will now see a new option in the extensions tab that says disabled. It should have a few extensions in there. You can make that area bigger by clicking on the bar that says DISABLED and then dray the top line of the box up.

Click on Git and then in the right side editor click the enable button

That will auto start Git and Git Base if disabled. If you have GitHub disables as well, you will need to start that using the same process.

If you never get the web page to open to authorize Git or GitHub use from withing VSCode, You may have an issue with the default web browser setting on your computer.

Windows users:

• Install the browser of your choice, if you haven't already.
• Open the Windows Start menu and click Settings.
• Click on Apps and then Default Apps.
• Scroll down and select the current default browser under the "Web Browser" section.
• Choose a new web browser from the list and click Set as Default. You may need to repeat this step for different file or link types.

MacOS Users:

• Download your preferred web browser.
• Install your browser. Double-click the downloaded DMG file
• Click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen.
• Click System Preferences…
• Click General
• Click the "Default web browser" drop-down box.
• Select a Default web browser

Linux Users

This command will show you what your current default web browser is:

To set the default browser you will use this following format command. Change the firefox.desktop to the browser of your choice

Common browser name:

There are 2 potential reasons that have been identified with students.

User setup GitHub Pages incorrectly

To verify if this is the issue you need to look for this in the error log of the GitHub Pages publishing process.

Step 1:

Go to the Actions tab of the repository

Click on the pages build and deployment link next to the error icon

Then click on either option to see the error

This is the error and the part that tells you what is wrong is at the end

This is the error text you need to look for at the end of the message

Error: No such file or directory @ dir_chdir0 - /github/workspace/docs

What the student did was to change the folder in the GitHub Pages setup page. They student has something like this:

It must be the root folder like this.

Once the user changes it to the root folder and saves the change, a new publishing process will start and it should publish if that is the only issue.

User creates a repository within a repository

This issue does occur and can occur if the student creates multiple repositories during the course.

You will first notice that your project did not build and if you look on the code page in GitHub, you will find the last commit message has a red X to the right of it.

Click on the Red X and you will be presented with something that looks like this.

Click on the details option next to the item with the red X

Look for the error lines. They start with the word Error: and are in red background color by default

If the first like of the errors reads like this:

"Error: fatal: No url found for submodule path <path to issue> in .gitmodules"

If you have this issue. You have a sub-folder that is also been initialized to be a git repository

Another way to see this potential issue is to look at the code and look at the location in the error above. You should see a folder icon with an arrow pointing to the right next to the folder name like this

A third way to check this is in VSCode.

To fix this you have to go into the sub-folder mentioned in the error and delete the hidden folder called .git

Easiest way to do this is within VSCode. Go to the source control area and click the 3 dots to the right of Source control

Select Views then click Source Control Repositories

This will then show you all the repositories under the main folder that is open in VSCode. It will look something like this if there are more then 1.

How to delete the second local repository.

Use your file manger and go to the sub folder with the initialized repository. Make sure to turn on "Show Hidden Items" and look for the .git folder name and delete it. Do not delete the one in the root folder.

For example: do not delete the wdd130/.git folder, but delete all other .git folders in sub folders under the wdd130 folder.

How to do this form command line/terminal using VSCode.

Windows Users

Option 1:

• open terminal
• Change the terminal type to Git Bash by clicking on the chevron pointing down next to the Plus sign
• Change folder to the folder with the second repository. For example using the image above:

  cd cse210b

• Type the following command:

  rm .git -rf

Option 2:

• open terminal. It will default to Powershell
• Change folder to the folder with the second repository. For example using the image above:

  cd cse210b

• Type the following command:

  Remove-Item -Recurse -Force .git

Mac and Linux users

• open terminal
• Change folder to the folder with the second repository. For example using the image above:

  cd cse210b

• Type the following command for Git Bash:

  rm .git -rf

Once done commit and sync with GitHub so that the build process can be re-initialized

When you get the following General Git Error message

Click on the Show Command Output button

If you get a message that looks like this with the last line stating

          Fatal: refusing to merge unrelated histories
        

Type the following commands in a terminal window in VSCode

            git merge --allow-unrelated-histories

            git merge origin origin/main
          

Then go ahead and make a change and then commit and sync with GitHub.

This error id due to some SSL connectivity issue between your computer and GitHub. There are a variety of reasons why you will get this message.

The easiest way to fix this is to re-install/update Git. Go to git-scm.com and download and install the software.

Windows computers You can update using one of two methods

• Run this command in a CMD prompt on Windows:

  git update-git-for-windows

• Download the files and run the installer manually. You can get the installation instructions here: Download for Windows

Mac Computers Apple suppies the version of Git to run through the XCode software. You must check for software updates for your Mac and install those updates. This is done through the App Store on the Mac. It is a good idea to install all those updates on a regular basis. You can get all the instructions for Mac here: Downloads for macOS

Linux ComputersIf you instal the Git software correctly, you should only need to use your package manager and run the updated command to get the most recent updates. You can get all the install commands for the various Linux Distributions here: Downloads for Linux

You do need to update Git at least every 4 months, sometime sooner. Git releases updates to the major point release about every 2 to 3 months with bug fixes randomly withing that timeframe.

As of when this was written, this table shows the last 3 major point releases with the bug fixes.