Github Windows client "loading commits failed"

Question

I have a largish (as in ~15,000 commits) Git repository, that seems to be fine when accessed from commandline Git but when I open the repository in the Github Windows client I always get the error "loading commits failed - Failed to load the commit history for the repository. You might need to open a shell and debug the state of this repo."

If I cancel out of that error message then things seem to be fine. My immediate question is whether there's a way to tell what local-git or web-github command the client is trying to run that's failing. More generally though, is there a diagnostics mode or log for the Github client where when possible I can tell the commands that the UI is initiating?

Thanks,

Answer 1

I had the same problem, but it was really easy to fix. You only have to go

C:\Users\User

Then delete the .gitconfig file.

Optionally create a backup of all your repos, but then you have to clone all of them.

Answer 2

Answering my own question...

I contacted Github support and was pointed to instructions for how to get logs for the client:

https://help.github.com/articles/accessing-the-github-for-windows-log

The issue I'm hitting was obvious from the logs and it turns out to be a known bug in LibGit2Sharp caused by an '@' symbol in a branch name.

Hopefully this answer helps someone in the future.