git: fatal: I don't handle protocol 'http'

Question

I copy and pasted an git clone command from a web page: https://fedorahosted.org/ibus-typing-booster/

I got this:

user@host> git clone http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/ibus-typing-booster.git

Cloning into 'ibus-typing-booster'...
fatal: I don't handle protocol 'http'

You can also take the (correct) URLs from the bottom of the repository view [here](https://git.fedorahosted.org/git/ibus-typing-booster.git). — poke, May 27 '15 at 06:30
@poke the URL is correct. I don't understand what you want to tell me. — guettli, May 27 '15 at 08:05
You can copy/paste it from there. It’s the URL generated by the repository viewer, and not a manually inserted one in some wiki, so it’s likely more correct. — poke, May 27 '15 at 08:33
This happened to me using msys-git and trying to paste (with ctrl-v and ctrl-shift-v), before realizing they were not valid keyboard shortcuts. Redoing the command and pasting with right-click->paste seemed to work. — Casey Kuball, Apr 05 '16 at 17:58
for me editing start of the protocol and retyping the same fixed it. May be some invisible utf characters messed things. — Seeni, Jul 27 '18 at 02:21

guettli · Accepted Answer · 2018-12-20T11:51:27.913

635

I copied and pasted the whole line git clone http://....

The character between git clone and http://... looks like a space, but it is a special Unicode character!

Short answer: After removing this character, and entering a real space, it worked!

For people who love details: I see two ways to reveal ascii vs special-unicode-characters

Way1: Python

Here is the real line:

vi t.txt # copy+paste the line
python
open('t.txt').read()
git clone \xe2\x80\x8b\xe2\x80\x8bhttp://...

Way2: less

vi t.txt # copy+paste the line
LESSCHARSET=ascii less vi.txt

If it looks like git clone <E2><80><8B><E2><80><8B>http://, then you copy+pasted special-unicode-characters.

edited Dec 20 '18 at 11:51

answered May 27 '15 at 06:12

guettli

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Nice find! The reason for that is probably that icon there. – poke May 27 '15 at 06:32
5

I spent 3 hours looking for a problem with SSH / keys / connection / submitting the keys to Gitlab just because I had a publickey denied message. :/ Then I switched to https and got the "don't handle" message, which tipped me of. And all that trouble was thanks to Unicode space-look-alike. Many, many thanks to you @guettli and Google/SO combo that led me here. – LAFK 4Monica_banAI_modStrike Apr 14 '16 at 21:49
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Thank you. I see two ways to get work-arounds: git could strip those special characters or the shell (I use bash). I wasted time, you wasted time .... if you summarize this, I guess this could be years of human time ... wasted. It's sad. – guettli Apr 15 '16 at 05:01
why does the space I type in convert to the Unicode character? There is no reason for that character to appear there, right? – Ooker May 30 '16 at 09:06
I did not type the character. I used copy+paste. If you type, there won't be a special character. Maybe if you accidentally insert a non-break space. See http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/154745/how-can-i-write-a-non-breaking-space – guettli May 30 '16 at 09:09
5

same here - copying link from github into windows GIT shell – ootwch Jun 05 '16 at 16:14
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@CiroSantilli烏坎事件2016六四事件法轮功 thank you! `xsel` outputs the clipboard content, and `hd` does a hex dump. Nice. – guettli Mar 03 '17 at 08:59
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A true solution. This post should be locked to prevent spam – Callat Feb 06 '18 at 22:32
@Calrog you want this post/answer to get locked? Why? What are you afraid of? – guettli Feb 07 '18 at 09:49
General answer spam, this has been asked and answered already years ago and is still getting new answers which is misleading. There are several age old questions I've come across that have quality answers that are locked for extra comments and new answers. I believe that this question falls into that category. – Callat Feb 07 '18 at 15:43
`<80><8B>` is actually the UTF-8 encoding of the unicode code point for the zero-width whitespace character `U+200B`, which some browsers may erroneously add when rendering certain elements - this is probably what happened in your case. This can be seen in a Python2 interpreter by setting some variable equal to the url in your description, then executing `var.decode('utf-8')`, which prints `u'git clone \u200b\u200bhttp://git.fedorahosted.org/git/ibus-typing-booster.git'`. As mentioned above, another way these characters can sneak in is from hitting `ctrl-v`, followed by `ctrl-shift-` – mhouglum Jun 10 '18 at 10:49

score 58 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 17 '16 at 13:00

58

Use backspace to delete whatever there is between git clone and the url and then use spacebar to add a clean space between them. Simple as that.

answered Apr 17 '16 at 13:00

Felipe Belluco

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J.Hpour · Answer 3 · 2018-04-02T10:01:44.837

27

I simply added 5 "SPACE"s between clone and the url:

  git clone     https://<PATH>/<TO>/<GIT_REPO>.git

and it works!

edited Apr 02 '18 at 10:01

answered Mar 26 '18 at 01:03

J.Hpour

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@guettli It works just when adding 5 space between clone and http(s)! when I read [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/30474448/4969485) I try to add some space, because of I was in a hurry and I could not use [this](https://stackoverflow.com/a/30474448/4969485) solution. It was accidentally and I don't know why it works! – J.Hpour Mar 27 '18 at 04:04

score 17 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 30 '15 at 15:30

17

Summary: Type the url instead of copy pasting it in the commandline. It worked for me.

answered Dec 30 '15 at 15:30

Rajan

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Summary from above answer: The character between clone and http://... looks like a space, but it is a special Unicode character! After removing this empty character, and entering a real space, it worked! The stuff with t.txt is just for people who are interested in the the "why" and not only in "works". – guettli Dec 30 '15 at 20:41
1

This was already mentioned in several other answers (including the accepted answer). – Pika Supports Ukraine Jun 03 '19 at 21:29

score 14 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 02 '18 at 16:32

14

Mostly it is due to some invisible unicode characters which can come if you hit "Ctrl+V" or "Ctrl+Shift+V" in the terminal. Don't copy and paste the whole command. Instead , type git clone and then copy and paste the url using Right Click + Paste.

answered Jun 02 '18 at 16:32

Paritosh Mahajan

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score 14 · Answer 6 · edited Aug 06 '19 at 09:59

14

My solution:

Type: git clone .
Copy the repository url and paste it after of git clone .
Move the cursor to position between git clone and https://... .
Delete space if it had between git clone and https://... until have git clonehttps://...
Re-add the space and press Enter.

edited Aug 06 '19 at 09:59

Mostafa Norzade

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answered May 31 '19 at 22:27

Christian Carrillo

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surprisingly it works even if you do not re-add the space – Stelium Feb 14 '20 at 14:07

score 11 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 15 '16 at 21:40

11

I used double quotes for the URL and it worked. So something like

git clone "http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/ibus-typing-booster.git"

works.. single quotes dont help. It has to be double quotes.

answered Nov 15 '16 at 21:40

mhn

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score 5 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 04 '19 at 13:52

5

The solution is very simple:

1- Copy your git path. forexample : http://github.com/yourname/my-git-project.git

2- Open notepad and Paste it. Then copy the path from notepad.

3- paste the path to command line

thats it.

answered Sep 04 '19 at 13:52

Fatihd

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score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Mar 18 '16 at 15:50

4

You can also use a text editor:

Paste the URL in the text editor
Copy the URL that was just pasted from the text editor
Paste it in the command line

answered Mar 18 '16 at 15:50

Zovfreullia

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2

I guess a simple hit on backspace does help, too – guettli Mar 18 '16 at 15:54

score 4 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 10 '17 at 20:10

4

Please do not copy from the clipboard . Just copy the url from your browser's location / Address bar .

answered Sep 10 '17 at 20:10

Reezoo

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The url was not in my address bar. It was plain text in a wiki. – guettli Sep 11 '17 at 07:27
no.. when paste URL in git bash.Suppose after git clone {your repo URL}.it takes additional character between clone and your repo URL. which you can check by deleting or hitting backspace before your repo url – Naveen Gupta Jan 07 '18 at 16:32

score 3 · Answer 11 · answered Dec 21 '16 at 20:43

3

The same issue happened with me when I have just copied the url into the clipboard and then pasted it into the terminal. Rewriting whole the line without copy-past option resolved my issue.

answered Dec 21 '16 at 20:43

Arsen

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Why do you write this answer? Do you think the current answer is missing something? – guettli Dec 22 '16 at 07:41
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Hi guettli, Are you sure that rewriting only the space character will resolve the mentioned issue in all possible cases? Is it possible to have something redundant/incorrect not in the white space but in the symbols included in url text as well? – Arsen Dec 23 '16 at 09:01
of course special unicode characters can be anywhere. I added a second way to "reveal ascii vs special unicode characters" to my answer. – guettli Dec 23 '16 at 09:10

score 3 · Answer 12 · answered Mar 10 '19 at 07:45

3

In Android Studio:

I removed git clone and just retain the url only and it worked!!

answered Mar 10 '19 at 07:45

Suraj Vaishnav

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score 1 · Answer 13 · answered Dec 06 '17 at 19:50

1

clonning below :

git clone https://github.com/zendframework/ZendSkeletonApplication.git

gives error:

Cloning into 'ZendSkeletonApplication'...
fatal: I don't handle protocol 'https'

Modified it to:

git clone https://github.com/zendframework/ZendSkeletonApplication

works perfectly or you can just git clone the url. I am using os windows 10 and gitbash.

answered Dec 06 '17 at 19:50

vidur punj

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It did the exact same error. The accepted answer worked for me. So it is resolved – Callat Feb 08 '18 at 15:30

score 1 · Answer 14 · edited Mar 27 '18 at 06:37

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Please Check URL you have pasted and It takes additional h after clone.

So either you have paste full git clone http://<URL>.git or just remove additional letter before git repository URL.

edited Mar 27 '18 at 06:37

J.Hpour

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answered Jan 06 '18 at 18:20

Naveen Gupta

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What do you mean with "additional h"? – guettli Jan 07 '18 at 11:49

score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 21 '18 at 16:23

1

if you are using windows use 'url' speech marks to open and close your url eg git clone 'your-url-here'

answered Mar 21 '18 at 16:23

Jeremy

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beroe · Answer 16 · 2018-10-17T16:32:21.810

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This just happened to us without any whitespace issues, and changing https: to http: fixed it...

edited Oct 17 '18 at 16:32

answered Aug 24 '18 at 23:55

beroe

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Nice, that this works for your. But I think the real issue was the special whitespace character which you removed by hitting backspace. I am unsure if this is really a valid answer to this question. – guettli Aug 26 '18 at 17:40
I don't think so. I typed it from scratch several times and got the same error. – beroe Aug 26 '18 at 19:52
and you got the error message "git: fatal: I don't handle protocol 'http'"? – guettli Aug 27 '18 at 09:50
1

It's funny but I have this problem too and i fixed it with this solution and I am pretty sure I don't have any special whitespace characters – Babak Habibi Oct 16 '18 at 13:12

score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Sep 09 '18 at 05:09

in visual studio code option git:clone i tried every thing e.g putting 5 backspace, deleting the special Unicode character! and putting space nothing works for me

solution works for me

simply open git bash and paste the whole git clone url and done,

it seems there is some issue with visual studio code

tejraj · Answer 18 · 2018-12-06T09:09:51.453

Related answer with this question.
Error - fatal: I don't handle protocol 'git clone https'
I was trying to clone git project to my newly installed VScode in my Linux system, i was copied the entire url from bit bucket, which was like

git clone https://abc@bitbucket.org/abcuser/myproject.git

But actually it running command like

git clone git clone https://abc@bitbucket.org/abcuser/myproject.git

in the bit bucket.
So Simply do the following steps :
1. Enter Ctr+p; this will open command box. Enter and open 'Clone'
2. Now only paste the url of your git reposiratory here. eg: https://abc@bitbucket.org/abcuser/myproject.git
3. After that box for enter your git password will appear on screen. Enter your git password here.
4. Done.

score 0 · Answer 19 · answered May 10 '19 at 08:18

0

Well looks like if you copy paste the repository link you end up with this issue.

What I have noticed it this

If you use the copy button on GitHub and then paste the URL in GitBash(Windows) it throws this error
If you select the link and then paste then it works, or you could also just type the URL that works as well.

So I think it might be an issue with the GitHub copy button

answered May 10 '19 at 08:18

Prostil Hardi

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I did not copy it from github. I think it was the issue management system trac. – guettli May 10 '19 at 09:20

score 0 · Answer 20 · answered Apr 22 '20 at 12:02

If you are using Git Extensions GUI or GitHub Desktop (means if you're using any UI software and not command-line tool) to clone the repo then you have to copy and paste only the URL i.e. https://... So there is no need to have git clone before URL as That Software will do it itself.

git: fatal: I don't handle protocol 'http'

20 Answers20

Way1: Python

Way2: less

Linked

git: fatal: I don't handle protocol '​​http'

20 Answers20

Way1: Python

Way2: less

Linked

git: fatal: I don't handle protocol 'http'