Problems cloning github repo
Asked by Ollie Edgington:

Hello all,

So I've managed to download a few repositories from my GitHub account already via SourceTree's clone repository option at start-up. They've downloaded and been placed correctly.

There is just one that I really need to sync-up with SourceTree that is not coming down. I do exactly the same as I normally do to add a GitHub repo, but when it starts it just gets stuck at the "Cloning From..." screen. See the image to have a look what I mean.

There are no permissions set on this repo it's exactly the same as the others I've already downloaded. I have a look at the network activity and the repo is around 300MB so the network activity should be spiking - but it's not. All the other downloaded repo's showed a spike in the download activity.

If anyone has any ideas that would be great, I just feel I've tried everything. Is there anyway to find out what it is getting stuck at? Log files? Error reports etc?

![Clone Screenshot](http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/5990/screenshot20121010at113.png)


Answers:
author: Ollie Edgington
body: Clone via terminal seems to work. Then add the repo as a working copy is the way forward.

Still after a re-install of sourcetree and git I have the same issues when trying to clone in SourceTree (1.5.4)

comments: author: stevestreeting
body: Do you get any authentication prompt when you clone on the command line? What version of git are you using on the command line?

SourceTree only calls git clone anyway, so I'm not sure what the issue could be here.


author: Ollie Edgington
body: git version 1.7.10.2 (Apple Git-33)  

Is the version I'm using. However the machine I'm on had some OS install issues and also when I first started installing git there were errors and I've lost track of what's there and what's not. I tried to clean everything up. I think it may be something to do with the PATH of the machine. There are a couple of installs of git on it not sure which one SourceTree would use. The version I just posted here is what I got after typing git --version in terminal.

Furthing that point and pulls or pushs work fine, in actual fact there are no further problems after the initial import.


author: stevestreeting
body: By default SourceTree uses an embedded version of git (means you don't have to have one installed, and generally guarantees it works in a known fashion), which is currently 1.7.11.1, ie slightly newer than the Apple version. I've never seen any conflicts between those two though. Unless you switched the version of Git SourceTree was using to a system version (in Preferences \> Git) while you were having those install issues?


author: Ollie Edgington
body: Ah yer, I see, I didn't understand that that option was when I first took a quick glance. But I'm using the embedded version and I haven't ever changed it. I'll switch it over to the system git. I don't think I'll be able to give you an answer after switching it as I will not need to download the whole projects again.


author: Ollie Edgington
body: Just a quick update, someone else in our company is having EXACTLY the same problem so many it's something in our office that is the issue...? Another thought that I'm having is that we can get all the smaller repos, but there are two that are 2GB+ that we can only get via terminal. even leaving it running in sourcetree for 48 hours + and still nothing both in the progress report and the network activity.


author: stevestreeting
body: Do you have any proxy setup at all? I would have expected that to affect the pull/push too though, and all repositories universally.

If this repo doesn't have any authentication on it, can you give me the clone URL so I can test it?


author: Ollie Edgington
body: Sorry I can't do that they're all commercial products, I have no idea about what is setup on the network here, there are over 700 workstations so I wouldn't know. But as you say if there was a network issue then any other attempt to connect wouldn't work either. It's a very strange case we're all scratching our heads here, however we've settle with the fact that the initial import has to be done in the terminal.


author: stevestreeting
body: Have you tried just waiting a while? Unfortunately git doesn't show the progress outside of a terminal so sometimes it's hard to judge - I know you're monitoring the network performance but that's not always a perfect guide, there's some packing / unpacking at either end which can take time too on large repos.

comments: author: Ollie Edgington
body: I've tried overnight both the day before yesterday and last night. which were both about 14- 15 hours. Still nothing when I return in the morning. I assumed as much with the packing, however when downloading a similar sized repo the network download speed stays around idle speed for 15 - 20 seconds then jumps all the way up to 6MBs.


author: stevestreeting
body: Hmm, in that case I'm confused, if there's no difference between this and any other repo (particularly authentication). You could try cloning on the command line just to see if that elicits any more information? Git does spit out out a little more detail when it sees a genuine terminal attached (like the progress).


author: Ollie Edgington
body: Just cloned the repo via terminal, everything works fine, very strange. Anyway everything is now up to date in source tree, that's for the help!