Troubleshooting

In the software development journey, encountering challenges and issues with Git is inevitable. However, with the right troubleshooting techniques and knowledge, you can overcome these obstacles and keep your development workflow smooth and efficient.

In this section, we will explore common Git issues and provide troubleshooting guidance to help you identify, diagnose, and resolve these challenges.

Let's dive into the world of Git troubleshooting and unlock the power to overcome common challenges and issues.

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“Permission denied (publickey)” error when connecting to a remote repository using SSH

First of all, you will want to ensure the following:

• Is the URL correct?
• Is the secret key correctly configured in the local machine?
• Is the public key correctly configured in the remote?

You can verify the public/secret key configuration corresponding to the Backlog remote repository by running the following command:

$ ssh <space>@<space>.git.backlog.com

Replace <space> with a Backlog space that you own (e.g., for the space demo.backlog.com, it will be demo@demo.git.backlog.com)

If the setting is correct, you will see the following output. If you see an error message, repeat the steps above and ensure you are doing it right.

Hi yourname! You've successfully authenticated, but Backlog does not provide
  shell access.
  Connection to git.backlog.com closed.

Unable to clone a remote repository via its HTTPS URL

On older versions of Git, you may occasionally face problems when executing a push or pull. It is recommended that you use the latest Git version or greater than v2. If you are using a Git client such as Source Tree or TortoiseGit, use the Git version that comes along with the corresponding client.

I am asked for my password every time I push to/pull from the remote repository

You can avoid entering password multiple times by configuring as follows.

Windows

You can use git-credential-winstore, which will only ask for your password the first time you push/pull.

Mac

You can use Sourcetree (which we covered in the earlier chapter) to link with the Mac Keychain. This will allow Git to figure out which credentials to use every time you pull or push.

Console

On a Mac, you can use the Git’s credentials API to link a username/password with Git operations. If you use Homebrew, the Git credential API is installed automatically. Otherwise, you will have to install it manually.

You can check if the credential API is installed with the command below.

$ git credential-osxkeychain
  Usage: git credential-osxkeychain <get|store|erase>

If the credential API is not installed, you will see the output below.

$ git credential-osxkeychain
  git: 'credential-osxkeychain' is not a git command. See 'git --help'.

In that case, you can download it and move the files to /usr/local/bin.

$ curl -s -O http://github-media-downloads.s3.amazonaws.com/osx/git-credential-osxkeychain
$ chmod u+x git-credential-osxkeychain
$ mv git-credential-osxkeychain /usr/local/bin

Upon completing the installation, run the following command below to activate the credential API.

git config --global credential.helper osxkeychain

Changes pushed to the remote repository are not being reflected there

You may come across the following message below when executing a push. That would normally happen when you are pushing from a new local repository.

$ git push
  No refs in common and none specified; doing nothing.
  Perhaps you should specify a branch such as 'main'.
  Everything up-to-date

By omitting the branch name when executing a push, Git will by default assume that you are trying to push the current change to a remote branch with the same name as the local branch. This happens if the main branch has not been created in the remote repository yet. (We are pushing from the local main branch.) In this case, we will have to explicitly use the branch name when executing a push.

$ git push -u origin main

By doing that, the main branch will be created in the remote repository automatically. The next time you run push, you can omit the branch name.