Git failed with a > fatal error. could not read Username for

Question

I've been struggling with that issue for a couple days now.

I'm unable to connect to my Git project (stored in VisualStudio.com) from a specific computer (it works on my second PC). Whenever I try to Sync or Clone my repository, VS2017 asks for my user credentials (twice) and the I get the following error :

Error: cannot spawn askpass: No such file or directory Error encountered while cloning the remote repository: Git failed with a fatal error. could not read Username for 'https://.visualstudio.com': terminal prompts disabled

Can't remember if I changed anything that could've caused that...

Solution 1

It’s mainly caused by the credentials have been remembered by Credential Manager. You should remove the credentials for xxx.visualstudio.com which have been stored in Credential Manager.

Such as if the pc’s OS is windows, you can open Credential Manager -> Windows Credentials -> under Generic Credentials -> remove the credentials like git:https://xxx.visualstudio.com.

Then clone again, git will let you input the credential for the repo. After inputing the username(email address) and password which can access the VSTS account, the repo should be cloned successful.

Solution 2

I did not have any git credentials registered with Windows Credentials and I still received this error, even after selecting my windows user account in the VS User Dialog popup.

After a day of trying different things like re-installing GIT for windows, I managed to fix this issue by deleting a this file: "C:\Users(profile)\AppData\Local\GitCredentialManager\tenant.cache".

On the next retry, a GIT entry showed up in my Windows Credentials generic list. See Issue

Solution 3

Simply update your Visual Studio to the latest version. This bug was reported and fixed with the latest updates. Worked for me.

Solution 4

I had a similar problem.

Push from within VS2017 would fail, I was getting an error spawning git-askpass.exe

I fixed it by copying/replacing all the files in the VS2017 git-core folder with the files from the git-core folder created by the Git installation.

I might have only needed the new git-credential-manager.exe, but I replaced everything.

So far, no problems.

VS2017 folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Enterprise\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer\Git\mingw32\libexec\git-core

Git installation folder: C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\libexec\git-core

Solution 5

Okay after much heartache I managed to resolve the issue (at this point had I tried everything including deleting accounts from Credential Manager).

I started up Visual Studio 2017 and then I opened my repository and next went to the Team Explorer tab for the repository.

I left-clicked on the Sync option and then again on the sync link button to initiate the pull/push actions. This caused Visual Studio to display a dialog box asking me to select my credentials.

However what I did to resolve the issue was to first "Forget" the account that I was trying to use in the first place (left-click on the 3 dot icon on the right) and then I was prompted for the username and password again - enter the correct one's and it should all sync up nicely now!

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Comments

[sr28]

Just had this issue. In my case I was able to access it fine yesterday but not today. I modified my .gitconfig to use SSH, then got prompted, closed it without connecting, set my .gitconfig back to how it was and retried. It then worked again.

[Anuranjan Srivastav]

I followed the steps but it did not work for me.I am using VS2017 and trying to connect to VSTS git project. I getting below error Error encountered while pushing to the remote repository: Git failed with a fatal error. Win32Exception encountered. Failed to write credentials cannot spawn askpass: No such file or directory could not read Username for 'xxxxxx.visualstudio.com': terminal prompts disabled Pushing to xxxxxx.visualstudio.com/_git/StockTrace

[Stefan Steiger]

And should that not be possible because you have no admin rights; git remote set-url origin username:[email protected]/username/repo.git - that worked for me. Note: Will store your github password in plaintext in ./git/config

[iroel]

It doesn't work for me when building in TFS. Suppose the submodule is configured using FQDN (i.e. subdomain.domain.com/tfs/DefaultCollection/Project/_git/…). When TFS build cloning the git repository, it uses subdomain only (subdomain/tfs/DefaultCollection/Project/_git/Repository1). I have no idea why it uses subdomain only during cloning. FYI, I configured TFS server the public url to use FQDN. I've tried to clear generic credential many times and still no luck. I can also reproduce the issue by using the same way.

[iroel]

Just tried again, the TFS build succeeded when it uses the same URL. In this case, I use subdomain only just like TFS build uses.

[J. Horn]

I changed my password with VS open -- won't do that again -- and Git failed with an authentication error. I removed my 2 git:... credentials, in Credential Manager and VS prompted for a username/password when syncing. Problem solved.

[MikeZ]

I tried this, it did not work for me. I had to get the latest git-credential-manager.exe and put it in the VS2017 git-core folder .

[Matstar]

I updated the credential manager, and it did not resolve my issue, but glad to see it worked out for you.

[user2847376]

I have the latest version of VS and this is still happening for me.

[zgue]

Today we connected our DevOps account to our AAD. After that we could not longer clone our repos. Your answer was the solution for this issue. Thanks a lot.

[Mike Gledhill]

I'm using a version of VS2017 updated 9 months after you made this suggestion... and the problem is still there.

[Ricardo Zambon]

This worked for me, I was having this same issue with VS 2017 Community 15.8.1. Thanks a lot!

[purplesoft]

delete all git stored credentials from credential manager and delete tenant.cache file work for me. thanks!

[BobbyTables]

This in combination with the @Matstar answer solved it. Needed to do both (remove tenant.cache +remove credentials in manager)

[solujic]

seems like a VS issue, I tried in VS2017 didn't work, I saw this and said hey let me try on VS2019 since I also have it installed and it worked (might be useful for someone).

[Preet]

Worked for me as well. Thank you! replacing only the git-credential-manager.exe didn't worked.

[Gruss]

In addition to this I had to run Visual Studio as an Administrator for the first time for the repo to sync correctly.

[Stephen Pham]

Along the same line, removing the credential for "git:github.com" helped fix the error "fatal: could not read Username for 'github.com': terminal prompts disabled" that I encountered in a Azure DevOps pipeline.