Git/GitHub can't push to master

Question

I am new to Git/GitHub and ran into an issue. I created a test project and added it to the local repository. Now I am trying to add files/project to the remote repository.

Here's what I did (and this worked) -

git remote add origin git://github.com/my_user_name/my_repo.git

Now when I try to push the repository to GitHub, using the following command, I get the following error -

git push origin master

Error -

fatal: remote error: You can't push to git://github.com/my_user_name/my_repo.git Use [email protected]:my_user_name/my_repo.git

If you are reading this Mar 17th 2022, check down detector. Github is failing. — Peter Cotton
– Peter Cotton, Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 14:26

Mark Longair · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-27 21:56:59Z

GitHub doesn't support pushing over the Git protocol, which is indicated by your use of the URL beginning git://. As the error message says, if you want to push, you should use either the SSH URL [email protected]:my_user_name/my_repo.git or the "smart HTTP" protocol by using the https:// URL that GitHub shows you for your repository.

(Update: to my surprise, some people apparently thought that by this I was suggesting that "https" means "smart HTTP", which I wasn't. Git used to have a "dumb HTTP" protocol which didn't allow pushing before the "smart HTTP" that GitHub uses was introduced - either could be used over either http or https. The differences between the transfer protocols used by Git are explained in the link below.)

If you want to change the URL of origin, you can just do:

git remote set-url origin [email protected]:my_user_name/my_repo.git

or

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/my_user_name/my_repo.git

More information is available in 10.6 Git Internals - Transfer Protocols.

So i changed the URL and retried the push, get this error now - ERROR: my_user_name/my_repo.git doesn't exist. Did you enter it correctly? fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
Is the URL you've set definitely the one that you can copy-and-paste from the page for your repository on GitHub? (It's case sensitive, incidentally.)
OK, well you have to create the repository on GitHub before you can push to it - when you do so, it'll give you instructions on how to clone or push to the repository.
I just had this very same problem. Actually the problem was that you have slash "/" right in between github.com and your username. And it should be a colon ":". That is the problem :D
@WilmerEHenaoH: that might have been your problem, but it wasn't the problem in the question or with in my answer ;) (Just for interest, there is sometimes confusion over the two styles of SSH URL in git, one of which uses a colon to separate hostname and path and the other of which doesn't.)

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:34:31Z

Use Mark Longair's answer, but make sure to use the HTTPS link to the repository:

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/my_user_name/my_repo.git

You can use then git push origin master.

Purplejacket · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-28 23:55:09Z

Mark Longair's solution using git remote set-url... is quite clear. You can also get the same behavior by directly editing this section of the .git/config file:

before:

[remote "origin"] fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* url = git://github.com/my_user_name/my_repo.git

after:

[remote "origin"] fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* url = [email protected]:my_user_name/my_repo.git

(And conversely, the git remote set-url... invocation produces the above change.)

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-01 10:16:25Z

2

There is a simple solution to this for someone new to this:

Edit the configuration file in your local .git directory (config). Change git: to https: below.

[remote "origin"] url = https://github.com/your_username/your_repo

edited Nov 1, 2015 at 10:16

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 1, 2013 at 7:04

ParamQuery

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2 Comments

Kevin J. Rice Over a year ago

Incorrect, https protocol will not allow pushes. See: "Pro Git" book, section 4.1.4 "HTTP/S Protocol". Link: git-scm.com/book/en/v2

Martijn Pieters Over a year ago

@KevinJ.Rice: uhm, where does it say that? Github uses the smart HTTP protocol and that allows for pushes just fine.

Hariharan AR · Accepted Answer · 2019-11-20 13:19:13Z

2

The below cmnds will fix the issue.

 git pull --rebase git push

answered Nov 20, 2019 at 13:19

Hariharan AR

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Comments

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-01 10:22:16Z

I had this issue after upgrading the Git client, and suddenly my repository could not push.

I found that some old remote had the wrong value of url, even through my currently active remote had the same value for url and was working fine.

But there was also the pushurl param, so adding it for the old remote worked for me:

Before:

[remote "origin"] url = git://github.com/user/repo.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* pushurl = [email protected]:user/repo.git

NOTE: This part of file "config" was unused for ages, but the new client complained about the wrong URL:

[remote "composer"] url = git://github.com/user/repo.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/composer/*

So I added the pushurl param to the old remote:

[remote "composer"] url = git://github.com/user/repo.git fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/composer/* pushurl = [email protected]:user/repo.git

Cerin · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-27 20:20:18Z

This error occurs when you clone a repo using a call like:

git clone git://github.com/....git

This essentially sets you up as a pull-only user, who can't push up changes.

I fixed this by opening my repo's .git/config file and changing the line:

[remote "origin"] url = git://github.com/myusername/myrepo.git

to:

[remote "origin"] url = ssh+git://[email protected]/myusername/myrepo.git

This ssh+git protocol with the git user is the authentication mechanism preferred by Github.

The other answers mentioned here technically work, but they all seem to bypass ssh, requiring you to manually enter a password, which you probably don't want.

CambridgeMike · Accepted Answer · 2011-09-25 21:16:39Z

If you go to http://github.com/my_user_name/my_repo you will see a textbox where you can select the git path to your repository. You'll want to use this!

rshdev · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-07 15:11:26Z

I added my pubkey to github.com and this was successful:

ssh -T [email protected]

But I received the "You can't push" error after having wrongly done this:

git clone git://github.com/mygithubacct/dotfiles.git git remote add origin [email protected]:mygithubacct/dotfiles.git ...edit/add/commit git push origin master

Instead of doing what I should have done:

mkdir dotfiles cd dotfiles git init git remote add origin [email protected]:mygithubacct/dotfiles.git git pull origin master ...edit/add/commit git push origin master

tokhi · Accepted Answer · 2017-11-06 13:35:42Z

To set https globally instead of git://:

git config --global url.https://github.com/.insteadOf git://github.com/

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2015-11-01 10:19:41Z

The fastest way yuo get over it is to replace origin with the suggestion it gives.

Instead of git push origin master, use:

git push [email protected]:my_user_name/my_repo.git master

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