github-desktop/docs/known-issues.md

Known Issues

This document outlines acknowledged issues with GitHub Desktop, including workarounds if known.

What should I do if...

I have encountered an issue listed here?

Some known issues have a workaround that users have reported addresses the issue. Please try the workaround for yourself to confirm it addresses the issue.

I have additional questions about an issue listed here?

Each known issue links off to an existing GitHub issue. If you have additional questions or feedback, please comment on the issue.

My issue is not listed here?

Please check the open and closed bugs in the issue tracker for the details of your bug. If you can't find it, or if you're not sure, open a new issue.

macOS

'The username or passphrase you entered is not correct' error after signing into account - #3263

This seems to be caused by the Keychain being in an invalid state, affecting applications that try to use the keychain to store or retrieve credentials. Seems to be specific to macOS High Sierra (10.13).

Workaround:

• Open Keychain Access.app
• Right-click on the login keychain and try locking it
• Right-click on the login keychain and try unlocking it
• Sign into your GitHub account again

Checking for updates triggers a 'Could not create temporary directory: Permission denied' message - #4115

This issue seems to be caused by missing permissions for the ~/Library/Caches/com.github.GitHubClient.ShipIt folder. This is a directory that Desktop uses to create and unpack temporary files as part of updating the application.

Workaround:

• Close Desktop
• Open Finder and navigate to ~/Library/Caches/
• Context-click com.github.GitHubClient.ShipIt and select Get Info
• Expand the Sharing & Permissions section
• If you do not see the "You can read and write" message, add yourself with the "Read & Write" permissions
• Start Desktop again and check for updates

Windows

Window is hidden after detaching secondary monitor - #2107

This is related to Desktop tracking the window position between launches, but not changes to your display configuration such as removing the secondary monitor where Desktop was positioned.

Workaround:

• Remove %APPDATA%\GitHub Desktop\window-state.json
• Restart Desktop

Certificate revocation check fails - #3326

If you are using Desktop on a corporate network, you may encounter an error like this:

fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/owner/name.git/': schannel: next InitializeSecurityContext failed: Unknown error (0x80092012) - The revocation function was unable to check revocation for the certificate.

GitHub Desktop by default uses the Windows Secure Channel (SChannel) APIs to validate the certificate received from a server. Some networks will block the attempts by Windows to check the revocation status of a certificate, which then causes the whole operation to error.

Workaround:

To use the classic OpenSSL behavior in Git, you'll need a PEM file containing certificates that are considered trusted. The public list provided by the curl project can be used if you are not connecting to a GitHub Enterprise instance which has it's own distinct certificates.

Once you've downloaded that PEM file somewhere, open a shell with Git and run these commands:

$ git config --global http.sslBackend "openssl"
$ git config --global http.sslCAInfo "C:/path with spaces/to/directory/cacert.pem"

Ensure you use forward slashes for the path when setting the sslCAInfo value.

Using a repository configured with Folder Redirection - #2972

Folder Redirection is an feature of Windows for administrators to ensure files and folders are managed on a network server, instead.

Not supported as Git is not able to resolve the working directory correctly:

2017-09-21T23:16:05.933Z - error: [ui] `git -c credential.helper= lfs clone --recursive --progress --progress -- https://github.com/owner/name.git \\harvest\Redirected\andrewd\My Documents\GitHub\name` exited with an unexpected code: 2.
Cloning into '\\harvest\Redirected\andrewd\My Documents\GitHub\name'...
remote: Counting objects: 4, done.
remote: Compressing objects:  33% (1/3)
remote: Compressing objects:  66% (2/3)
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3/3)
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
remote: Total 4 (delta 1), reused 4 (delta 1), pack-reused 0
fatal: unable to get current working directory: No such file or directory
warning: Clone succeeded, but checkout failed.
You can inspect what was checked out with 'git status'
and retry the checkout with 'git checkout -f HEAD'

Error(s) during clone:
git clone failed: exit status 128

Enable Mandatory ASLR triggers cygheap errors - #3096

Windows 10 Fall Creators Edition (version 1709 or later) added enhancements to the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit, one being to enable Mandatory ASLR. This setting affects the embedded Git shipped in Desktop, and produces errors that look like this:

      1 [main] sh (2072) C:\Users\bdorrans\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\app-1.0.4\resources\app\git\usr\bin\sh.exe: *** fatal error - cygheap base mismatch detected - 0x2E07408/0x2EC7408.
This problem is probably due to using incompatible versions of the cygwin DLL.
Search for cygwin1.dll using the Windows Start->Find/Search facility
and delete all but the most recent version.  The most recent version *should*
reside in x:\cygwin\bin, where 'x' is the drive on which you have
installed the cygwin distribution.  Rebooting is also suggested if you
are unable to find another cygwin DLL.

Enabling Mandatory ASLR affects the MSYS2 core library, which is relied upon by Git for Windows to emulate process forking.

Not supported: this is an upstream limitation of MSYS2, and it is recommend that you either disable Mandatory ASLR or whitelist all executables under <Git>\usr\bin which depend on MSYS2.

I get a black screen when launching Desktop

Electron enables hardware accelerated graphics by default, but some graphics cards have issues with hardware acceleration which means the application will launch successfully but it will be a black screen.

Workaround: if you set the GITHUB_DESKTOP_DISABLE_HARDWARE_ACCELERATION environment variable to any value and launch Desktop again it will disable hardware acceleration on launch, so the application is usable.

Failed to open CA file after an update - #4832

A recent upgrade to Git for Windows changed how it uses http.sslCAInfo.

An example of this error:

fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/<owner>/<repo>.git/': schannel: failed to open CA file 'C:/Users/<account>/AppData/Local/GitHubDesktop/app-1.2.2/resources/app/git/mingw64/bin/curl-ca-bundle.crt': No such file or directory

This is occuring because some users have an existing Git for Windows installation that created a special config at C:\ProgramData\Git\config, and this config may contain a http.sslCAInfo entry, which is inherited by Desktop.

There's two problems with this current state:

• Desktop doesn't need custom certificates for it's Git operations - it uses SChannel by default, which uses the Windows Certificate Store to verify server certificates
• this http.sslCAInfo config value may resolve to a location or file that doesn't exist in Desktop's Git installation

Workaround:

1. Verify that you have the problem configuration by checking the output of this command:

> git config -l --show-origin

You should have an entry that looks like this:

file:"C:\ProgramData/Git/config" http.sslcainfo=[some value here]

2. Open C:\ProgramData\Git\config (requires elevated privileges) and remove the corresponding lines that look like this:

[http]
sslCAInfo = [some value here]