Error Code 128 shows unknown network drive
Asked by Ben Ruming:

I have been happily using SourceTree for 4 months, when suddenly none my local repositories would be displayed in the tool.

The errror says 'git status' failed with code 128: unable to access 'H:\\/.config/git/config': invalid argument... then it shows the correct local path to the repository.

I have made no changes to the config, nor performed any updates when this issue hit.

I have tried updating the embedded GIT and using it, without success. I have also tried re-installing without success.

Using git status and other commands from the SourceTree termainal works fine

Any ideas?


Answers:
author: Pawel Cioch
body: This error is relevant to the fact many companies map network drive and put your user data directory in such a drive, in my case it's mixed, most software uses regular home directory, but for some reason ST binds to this mapped one, and global config is being placed there and if you work from home without VPN sourcetree will complain missing that location.

Here is an example from my own investigation <https://stackoverflow.com/a/55839051/1818723>

Look how I'm mapped to \\\\it-nap-data\\...

Now when at home I have exactly same error as you are but this is a bug in SourceTree, because git command line reads my %UserProfile%

Something is 100% wrong with SourceTree on windows. It should read only %UserProfile% variable. Still there is a chance your company mapped %UserProfile% to network drive, but in general when you work remotely you need to have apps locally so under most cases it's SourceTree fault

comments: author: Seth
body: That's great debugging! Clearly you've demonstrated a use case that the SourceTree devs never considered/tested. Have you reported a bug?

<https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa>


author: Pawel Cioch
body: No I haven't reported a bug, I don't know how to describe it :) I just hacked my company laptop to not use this network drive in the registry

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Volatile Environment

but since this is Volatile Environment it may not work after restart, the other thing I created same global config in both locations in

%UserProfile%\\.gitconfig

and in

%UserProfile%\\AppData\\Local\\Atlassian\\SourceTree\\git_local\\mingw32\\etc\\gitconfig

if registry to be updated after restart/domain re-login I may try to hack it even more.

Finally I don't report a bug because many people did about \[includeIf\] any Atlassian indicated ignorance, so why would we bother to try to fix a product that "works" for them


author: joelkdennis
body: I have run into the same exact problem. My H drive is a network drive which is used to map the "home" drive on my company's network. Whenever I lose access to the H drive, I receive the error in git. Sometimes, the H drive will lose connection at work due to network issues. If I am at home at not connected to my work network via vpn I will get the issue. As soon as I connect to the VPN, the issue goes away. It appears that my local GIT has installed some reference to my H drive which I never use. But since it is mapped as the home drive, sourcetree, which is using git, is now dependent upon my H drive. I haven't made the change yet to fix it, but I believe I may have to change the default home drive, then reinstall git.


author: Pawel Cioch
body: Can Atlassian fix this bug and using HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Volatile Environment\\HOMEDRIVE as this is mapped to network share at enterprise. Just read global .gitconfig from %UserProfile%


author: Seth
body: There are many practical problems with using a DVCS (git/mercurial) to manage pseudo-local repositories (such as network storage). This is a Git issue, not a SourceTree one. [This post](/questions/275021/fatal-unable-to-write-new-index-file) has a similar issue and links to even more questions.

I STRONGLY recommend having your repository actually be local, and add this network location where you also want your files to live as a remote that you can push to.

Feel free to explain any reasons why that doesn't work for your particular situation.

comments: author: Ben Ruming
body: Hi Seth,

All my local repositories **are** stored in my C Drive. My remote repositories are located on a server in my regional data centre. I have never stored anything on the H drive SourceTree is indicating, so not sure why it suddenly started referencing this drive. As mentioned, the error shows the correct local file system's location of my repository... very odd.


author: Seth
body: Ah, that is very odd. Do you have an H drive? Is it a network drive or something else?