Why does git pull hang?

Question

When I do a git pull, from the git bash, the terminal usually runs the pull, updates my local, and then hangs. I'm not sure if it's waiting for me to do something, but I usually exit out of this with CTRL-C. After that, I get that an index.lock is preventing me from doing other things to which I have to delete it. Am I misunderstanding how git pull works?

In the terminal, execute as one statement `GIT_TRACE=true git pull`, and then see if you can see what it is doing when it hangs. — Lasse V. Karlsen, May 17 '17 at 17:23
Are you on Windows? If so, and if it is hanging during the `git merge` step, do you have some process running that is holding a lock on some file? Windows has "mandatory locking" in which if process *A* has a file locked, and process *B* (Git) tries to *use* that file, process *B* is paused until *A* releases the lock. If you terminate *B* (i.e., ^C out of Git), ideally it should clean up its `index.lock` file (which doesn't use Windows' mandatory locking, it's just an ordinary file Git uses to coordinate with itself), but apparently it doesn't. — torek, May 17 '17 at 17:53
In my case, it worked after closing cmder, vscode, and azure data studio. So one of them must've had a lock on a git-related file or something. — JohnnyFun, Jun 22 '23 at 16:52

score 101 · Answer 1 · answered May 09 '18 at 12:11

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You may need to remove unnecessary git objects such as dangling commits & blobs:

git fsck && git gc --prune=now

git-fsck : Verifies the connectivity and validity of the objects in the database
git-gc : Cleanup unnecessary files and optimize the local repository

You can refer here about dangling commits & blobs.

answered May 09 '18 at 12:11

Akif

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`git gc --prune=now` did it for me, though it did take about 10-15 minutes to finish. I ran it with `GIT_TRACE=true git gc --prune=now` to verify it was working and not permanently lagging. (`git fsck` lagged for me and didn't seem to help) – skplunkerin Feb 08 '22 at 20:03

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 11 '17 at 15:07

11

I am in Windows, and I solved the hang by closing the Visual Studio before doing the pull.

answered Oct 11 '17 at 15:07

Zac

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(On Mac OS X) I had Visual Studio Code opened and it hung on `git pull`. Closed it. Did `git pull` again and VS Code launched and opened a commit message for the `merge` that was needed because of the `git pull`. Entered a message, saved, closed the window and all was well. – Jheasly Nov 01 '17 at 01:33
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I had issues with my network which was blocking the ssh connections, when I read your answer I realized that my problem can be other thing than what I was expecting to be. – allexiusw Aug 23 '21 at 17:41

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 11 '20 at 05:59

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Check SSH_AUTH_SOCK isn't pointing at a stale ssh-agent endpoint. Unset it (unset SSH_AUTH_SOCK) to test.

answered Mar 11 '20 at 05:59

Barry Kelly

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Thank you, This solved my problem after 2 hours of researching – ibra Jul 09 '22 at 13:27

score 9 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 01 '17 at 14:48

If you are pulling from a linux machine you may want to check this file:

/etc/ssh/ssh_config

To make sure you aren't setting your default SSH port to something other than 22. Some people get confused between that file and:

/etc/ssh/sshd_config

When they're setting up servers to a non-standard SSH port.

score 9 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 03 '21 at 03:52

9

As someone who does not use VS Code very often, I too thought git was hanging when I ran git pull. Turns out I was just not very observant. As illustrated in the image below, I was laser focused on the terminal and did not notice the prompt for a username which was the actual cause of the "hang".

answered Nov 03 '21 at 03:52

Stephen

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Thank you, I just switched to main branch to update and noticed it asking for a password. – Neha Agarwal Oct 23 '22 at 16:53
This is exactly the problem I had, thank you! – Nicole Finnie Feb 06 '23 at 13:22

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered May 19 '21 at 02:09

8

On Fedora 32, all git commands were hanging for me (only for repos on gitlab), solved with

sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6=1

leaving this here in case it helps anyone else

answered May 19 '21 at 02:09

byake

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I had to run ```bash sudo sysctl -w net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=1 ``` on Pop_OS! for a GitLab repo too, worked fine for GitHub, very weird. – Brian Di Palma Apr 01 '22 at 19:28

score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Feb 01 '22 at 07:31

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In my case, the problem was solved by switching ssh to use IPv4.

To do that, put AddressFamily inet string into ~/.ssh/config file.

answered Feb 01 '22 at 07:31

flomaster

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Nice. Thanks. This worked for me on Ubuntu 22.04. – JackLeEmmerdeur Oct 18 '22 at 17:06
Wow. It solved my problem too on my WSL2 Ubuntu terminal – Barış Velioğlu Jan 17 '23 at 11:30
git pull & git checkout hangs with bitbucket with ipv6 address, that config removed the problem – user85155 Apr 27 '23 at 08:03

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 20 '20 at 22:13

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Your ISP might be blocking the traffic. For example, VirginMedia in the UK does something with a proxy for their filters that causes GitHub traffic to hang. I had this issue, and disabling the filter fixed it.

answered Sep 20 '20 at 22:13

sjmeverett

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Thanks so much for this! They've had this issue since 2018 and it still exists. Unbelievable! – rbennell Jan 01 '22 at 16:29

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 27 '21 at 12:20

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I updated git scm 2.32.0 to 2.33.1 version and problem with hanging fetch, push, pull was resolved

answered Oct 27 '21 at 12:20

Mike

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thanks! it's working,I just download the latest version of git that solved my problem! – Bub Mar 22 '22 at 06:23

El8dN8 · Answer 10 · 2023-06-13T21:18:31.207

For me, port 22 (SSH port) was blocked by the university I was visiting (affecting the eduroam network). Instead, I started using port 443 (HTTPS port). To diagnose if port 22 is blocked you may compare if ssh -T -p 22 git@ssh.github.com blocks and ssh -T -p 443 git@ssh.github.com gives a message.

For a single repo, my solution was to add an alternative remote I called origin443

git remote add origin443 ssh://git@ssh.github.com:443/[USERNAME]/[REPO-NAME].git

To fix this problem regardless of repository you can update/add the ssh Github entry in your ~/.ssh/config to always use 443 for Github. Use:

Host github.com
    Hostname ssh.github.com
    Port 443
    User git

For more information see SSH over HTTPS on Github docs

I don't think that this is relevant as the question clearly mentions that donwloading refs work. — Baju, Jun 15 '23 at 12:02

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Feb 13 '20 at 10:13

Had same issue, which was related to my ssh client.

This was confirmed trying to connect to a remote ssh server with the '-v' (verbose) option

ssh -v -p PORTNUMBER USERNAME@SERVER

which gave rekey after XXXXXX blocks” before getting stuck.

apt-get purge and apt-get install didn't help, so - before facing the interestign approach here exposed at https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/280800 - I went for an easy reboot, which did the job.

score 1 · Answer 12 · answered Aug 24 '22 at 05:04

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In my case, the 'git pull' hangs in the vscode terminal(zsh), which cannot display the password prompt. Using another shell (login via putty) other than in vscode to solve this problem

answered Aug 24 '22 at 05:04

user13161721

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you can debug git pull from here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6178401/how-can-i-debug-git-git-shell-related-problems – user13161721 Aug 24 '22 at 05:11

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jun 05 '21 at 16:23

My problem was that I had changed my ssh config file and this repository was using a non-existent ssh config.

To check remote config:

git remote -v

To check ssh config:

cat ~/.ssh/config

To fix it, I had to remove remote and add a new one:

git remote add origin
git remote add origin right-ssh-config

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Nov 16 '21 at 07:19

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I faced the same issue while using VSCode. I solved it by toggling off and on the GitHub: Git Authentication setting (in User Settings (UI))

answered Nov 16 '21 at 07:19

vdi

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score 0 · Answer 15 · edited Jan 08 '22 at 16:11

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If you are in Linux, close and reopen the terminal and restart your ssh. Enter the following code in the terminal, and try again.

eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"

ssh-add ~/.ssh/putHereYourSSHkey

ssh -T git@github.com

edited Jan 08 '22 at 16:11

Vega

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answered Jan 08 '22 at 14:13

Baboucarr Badjie

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Can you add some detail about why you believe this will fix the issue? Thanks! – Bek Jan 08 '22 at 15:49
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Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please [edit] to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Jan 08 '22 at 18:05

score 0 · Answer 16 · answered Oct 08 '22 at 17:08

0

When going through all the resources/domains under my ~/.git/config I started to test/ping/telnet all domains, one of them - simply didn't answer, its IP was changed. that caused the entire git pull to hang...

answered Oct 08 '22 at 17:08

Ricky Levi

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score 0 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 27 '22 at 13:51

I had the same problem. I tried all the solutions described here in the other answers, and nothing worked. Then I noticed that I'm only having this problem with one repo, and other repos were working fine.
I double checked that there is no "index.lock" file for the repo that was having the problem. Then I just deleted the entire folder and re-cloned the repo. Problem solved.

Why does git pull hang?

17 Answers17

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