Github Windows client "loading commits failed"

Question

I have a largish (as in ~15,000 commits) Git repository, that seems to be fine when accessed from commandline Git but when I open the repository in the Github Windows client I always get the error "loading commits failed - Failed to load the commit history for the repository. You might need to open a shell and debug the state of this repo."

If I cancel out of that error message then things seem to be fine. My immediate question is whether there's a way to tell what local-git or web-github command the client is trying to run that's failing. More generally though, is there a diagnostics mode or log for the Github client where when possible I can tell the commands that the UI is initiating?

Thanks,

Gabie

I would contact Github's support team. They're pretty good. – Equipment

Good point. Though as much as possible I'd like to perform due diligence in case there's some mistake on my side. If there are diagnostic tools for the client then I can contact support with better information. – Gabie

I would just stick to the command line. This is how git was meant to be used. All other tooling will be sub-par for quite a while yet. – Orle

I generally do use the command line, but I also use both the Windows and Mac clients as complimentary views (e.g. the Mac client has real time notifications about pull requests). I find the native clients valuable and they generally work pretty well. I'd like to use them as effectively as possible, and if there's something wrong with it I'd like to understand the problem well enough to file a meaningful bug report. – Gabie

Answer 1

Answering my own question...

I contacted Github support and was pointed to instructions for how to get logs for the client:

https://help.github.com/articles/accessing-the-github-for-windows-log

The issue I'm hitting was obvious from the logs and it turns out to be a known bug in LibGit2Sharp caused by an '@' symbol in a branch name.

Hopefully this answer helps someone in the future.

Gabie

Answer 2

I had the same problem, but it was really easy to fix. You only have to go

C:\Users\User

Then delete the .gitconfig file.

Optionally create a backup of all your repos, but then you have to clone all of them.

Prolate