Git maintenance fails without meaningful error message if any remote is no longer available

Git maintenance fails without meaningful error message if any remote is no longer available

[Anselm Schüler]

I have a repo with multiple remotes, one of which no longer exists. When 
git-maintenance runs on it, it fails during the prefetch stage because 
that remote doesn’t exist anymore, and gives a mostly unhelpful error 
message:

$ git maintenance run --schedule=daily
ERROR: Repository not found.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
error: failed to prefetch remotes
error: task 'prefetch' failed

I think that
1. git-maintenance should report which remote it’s encountering an error on
2. git-maintenance should continue fetching other remotes even if one fails

Now, on my system, the systemd timers for git-maintenance use 
git-for-each-repo. Not sure if that’s upstream behaviour or something 
Nix/home-manager does. But if it is upstream behaviour, it would also be 
great to report the repo the error comes from, since I basically had to 
guess right now which repo was erroring. Luckily I have only three repos 
under maintenance so that was fine.

Let me know if you agree that this should be done. I would be open to 
writing a patch (no promises though)

Anselm

Re: Git maintenance fails without meaningful error message if any remote is no longer available

[Phillip Wood]

Hi Anselm

On 30/04/2026 00:13, Anselm Schüler wrote:
> I have a repo with multiple remotes, one of which no longer exists. When 
> git-maintenance runs on it, it fails during the prefetch stage because 
> that remote doesn’t exist anymore, and gives a mostly unhelpful error 
> message:
> 
> $ git maintenance run --schedule=daily
> ERROR: Repository not found.
> fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
> 
> Please make sure you have the correct access rights
> and the repository exists.
> error: failed to prefetch remotes
> error: task 'prefetch' failed
> 
> I think that
> 1. git-maintenance should report which remote it’s encountering an error on
> 2. git-maintenance should continue fetching other remotes even if one fails

Since c75662bfc9 (maintenance: running maintenance should not stop on 
errors, 2024-04-24) which is in git 2.45.3 the systemd timer files 
installed by "git maintenance start" use "git for-each-repo --keep-going 
--config=..." to avoid this problem. Unfortunately we don't have a way 
to automatically upgrade the timer files for users who ran "git 
maintenance start" before that. I think if you run

	git maintenance stop
	git maintenance start

It will delete the old timer files and install the new ones. If that 
does not work you'll need to manually edit the files and add 
"--keep-going" to "git for-each-repo".

Thanks

Phillip

> Now, on my system, the systemd timers for git-maintenance use git-for- 
> each-repo. Not sure if that’s upstream behaviour or something Nix/home- 
> manager does. But if it is upstream behaviour, it would also be great to 
> report the repo the error comes from, since I basically had to guess 
> right now which repo was erroring. Luckily I have only three repos under 
> maintenance so that was fine.
> 
> Let me know if you agree that this should be done. I would be open to 
> writing a patch (no promises though)
> 
> Anselm
> 
> 

Re: Git maintenance fails without meaningful error message if any remote is no longer available

[Anselm Schüler]

[ This is a duplicate message because I forgot to hit Reply All the last 
time ]

Hi Phillip,

I think there may be a misunderstanding. My current systemd timers do 
use --keep-going. The issue is that on the individual repo, 
git-maintenance won’t fetch other remotes if one remote fails. 
--keep-going will ensure that the other repos get processed, but the 
repo with the failing remote won’t fetch any remotes after the failing one.

At least, that’s what appears to be happening from the output of the 
command.

On 05/05/2026 11:59, Phillip Wood wrote:
> Hi Anselm
>
> On 30/04/2026 00:13, Anselm Schüler wrote:
>> I have a repo with multiple remotes, one of which no longer exists. 
>> When git-maintenance runs on it, it fails during the prefetch stage 
>> because that remote doesn’t exist anymore, and gives a mostly 
>> unhelpful error message:
>>
>> $ git maintenance run --schedule=daily
>> ERROR: Repository not found.
>> fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
>>
>> Please make sure you have the correct access rights
>> and the repository exists.
>> error: failed to prefetch remotes
>> error: task 'prefetch' failed
>>
>> I think that
>> 1. git-maintenance should report which remote it’s encountering an 
>> error on
>> 2. git-maintenance should continue fetching other remotes even if one 
>> fails
>
> Since c75662bfc9 (maintenance: running maintenance should not stop on 
> errors, 2024-04-24) which is in git 2.45.3 the systemd timer files 
> installed by "git maintenance start" use "git for-each-repo 
> --keep-going --config=..." to avoid this problem. Unfortunately we 
> don't have a way to automatically upgrade the timer files for users 
> who ran "git maintenance start" before that. I think if you run
>
>     git maintenance stop
>     git maintenance start
>
> It will delete the old timer files and install the new ones. If that 
> does not work you'll need to manually edit the files and add 
> "--keep-going" to "git for-each-repo".
>
> Thanks
>
> Phillip
>
>> Now, on my system, the systemd timers for git-maintenance use 
>> git-for- each-repo. Not sure if that’s upstream behaviour or 
>> something Nix/home- manager does. But if it is upstream behaviour, it 
>> would also be great to report the repo the error comes from, since I 
>> basically had to guess right now which repo was erroring. Luckily I 
>> have only three repos under maintenance so that was fine.
>>
>> Let me know if you agree that this should be done. I would be open to 
>> writing a patch (no promises though)
>>
>> Anselm
>>
>>
>

Re: Git maintenance fails without meaningful error message if any remote is no longer available

[Phillip Wood]

Hi Anselm

On 05/05/2026 11:05, Anselm Schüler wrote:
> [ This is a duplicate message because I forgot to hit Reply All the last 
> time ]
> 
> Hi Phillip,
> 
> I think there may be a misunderstanding. My current systemd timers do 
> use --keep-going. The issue is that on the individual repo, git- 
> maintenance won’t fetch other remotes if one remote fails. --keep-going 
> will ensure that the other repos get processed, but the repo with the 
> failing remote won’t fetch any remotes after the failing one.
> 
> At least, that’s what appears to be happening from the output of the 
> command.

Oh sorry I'd misunderstood what was happening. I think that error comes 
from "git fetch --all" which dying in connect.c:die_initial_contact(). 
If there is one remote that is causing problems you could set 
remote.<name>.skipFetchAll so that git maintenance does not try and 
fetch from it. I've Cc'd Stolee to see if he has any better ideas for 
fixing this.

Thanks

Phillip

> On 05/05/2026 11:59, Phillip Wood wrote:
>> Hi Anselm
>>
>> On 30/04/2026 00:13, Anselm Schüler wrote:
>>> I have a repo with multiple remotes, one of which no longer exists. 
>>> When git-maintenance runs on it, it fails during the prefetch stage 
>>> because that remote doesn’t exist anymore, and gives a mostly 
>>> unhelpful error message:
>>>
>>> $ git maintenance run --schedule=daily
>>> ERROR: Repository not found.
>>> fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
>>>
>>> Please make sure you have the correct access rights
>>> and the repository exists.
>>> error: failed to prefetch remotes
>>> error: task 'prefetch' failed
>>>
>>> I think that
>>> 1. git-maintenance should report which remote it’s encountering an 
>>> error on
>>> 2. git-maintenance should continue fetching other remotes even if one 
>>> fails
>>
>> Since c75662bfc9 (maintenance: running maintenance should not stop on 
>> errors, 2024-04-24) which is in git 2.45.3 the systemd timer files 
>> installed by "git maintenance start" use "git for-each-repo --keep- 
>> going --config=..." to avoid this problem. Unfortunately we don't have 
>> a way to automatically upgrade the timer files for users who ran "git 
>> maintenance start" before that. I think if you run
>>
>>     git maintenance stop
>>     git maintenance start
>>
>> It will delete the old timer files and install the new ones. If that 
>> does not work you'll need to manually edit the files and add "--keep- 
>> going" to "git for-each-repo".
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Phillip
>>
>>> Now, on my system, the systemd timers for git-maintenance use git- 
>>> for- each-repo. Not sure if that’s upstream behaviour or something 
>>> Nix/home- manager does. But if it is upstream behaviour, it would 
>>> also be great to report the repo the error comes from, since I 
>>> basically had to guess right now which repo was erroring. Luckily I 
>>> have only three repos under maintenance so that was fine.
>>>
>>> Let me know if you agree that this should be done. I would be open to 
>>> writing a patch (no promises though)
>>>
>>> Anselm
>>>
>>>
>>
>