Errors when using RStudio's Git tools

Question

When attempting to push to GitHub from RStudio, I get the following errors.

error: unable to read askpass response from 'rpostback-askpass'
fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com':
       No such device or address

RStudio has my origin as

https://github.com/rmscriven/other.git

when it actually should be

https://github.com/rmscriven/saber.git

RStudio will not allow me to change the origin from the version control system. Here is what it shows:

Is it possible to change my GitHub origin url from RStudio?

Answer 1

Thanks to the pro tip provided by @krlmlr in the comments,

Use an empty target directory. Look for "clone URL" on your GitHub project page, perhaps choose the SSH variant.

I clicked "clone url" on GitHub once, nothing. Then again, nothing. And once again for good measure, nothing. So I went to the terminal, read the man git help file, and decided to change my password and reconfigure. These are the lines I ran, and it was successful.

git config --global user.name <myuser.name>
git config --global user.email <myuser.email>   
git clone https://github.com/rmscriven/saber.git
git pull

Then I went to RStudio and it allowed me to clone my repository, and change the URL of my version control setting. Here's a colorful pic

New project -> Version Control -> Git -> Create Project

Next, magic happened, and I had a copy of my package which I very carefully removed to prepare to push the development tarball to GitHub. Rock on.

@krlmlr, I thank you for nudging me in the right direction. Now I feel like I'm actually doing it the right way. :)

And for fun, try saying 'rpostback-askpass' ten times fast.

Answer 2

I had the same problem and for me these two simple steps worked great:

1. Add the SSH key from RStudio to my github account.

2. Change the origin URL and use the -u flag for push/pull once (solution found here).

For 1., in RStudio go to Tools → Global Options... → Git/SVN → view public key, and copy the key. In your browser of choice, logged in on Github, click Edit Profile → SSH keys and paste the copied key here.

For 2., back in RStudio, click Tools → Shell… , then enter:

git remote add origin https://github.com/myname/test.git
git config remote.origin.url [email protected]:myname/test.git
git pull -u origin master
git push -u origin master

Of course, change "myname" to your username and "test.git" to the name of your project. (Or even "github.com" to the URL of your institute's github or similar.)

After doing this once, the Push/Pull buttons in RStudio should work and you don't need the shell anymore!