Every time I launch sourctree it acts like it's re-installing
Asked by bgf777:

Launch, get a small window with a progress bar "downloading", Then it comes up. Also:

\* It's installed in user/\<my user name\>/AppData/Local. That's a crazy place for it to be, right?

\* It stopped checking for updates. Even though that option remained checked it never did. I had to manually download and install.

\* Today it got into a crazy state where git from the command line and sourcetree disagreed about the status of my repo.

\*In order to start fresh I uninstalled, then deleted AppData/Atlassian and AppData/Sourcetree. Then I re-installed, but it still remembered all my old git passwords. I had wanted to get rid of them.


Answers:
author: rohans_65
body: I Have this problem also on Windows 10.  
Wiping and re-installing does not fix it.  
I have to go through the entire installation every time I launch.  
Unless this is fixed I will no longer be using SourceTree.


author: artiom_buslovsky
body: Same problem on Windows 11. It's half through 2024 already. They have trash developers I guess.


author: TrainLayout
body: Here we are in 2023 and this is still irritating.

Brand new installation today and it does it all the time.

SourceTree also does not appear in the start menu and list of installed programs.

Reinstalling software does not FIX a bug. It just hides it for a short while.


author: Ana Retamal
body: Hi Bruce, my recommendation would be that you check the credential manager from Windows and then do a clean install following the steps:

1. [Wipe Sourcetree preference](https://confluence.atlassian.com/sourcetreekb/how-to-wipe-sourcetree-preferences-412484640.html)s.
2. Uninstall Sourcetree (if it shows on the App\&Features list)
3. Backup then delete the directory below before proceeding with next step:
   * Navigate to C:\\Users\\\<UserName\>\\AppData\\Local and delete Sourcetree \& Sourcetree-Settings folder
   * Navigate to C:\\Users\\\<UserName\>\\AppData\\Local\\Atlassian and delete all Sourcetree Files/ folder.
4. [Download SourceTree](https://www.sourcetreeapp.com/) and install it.

The path *user/\<my user name\>/AppData/Local* is the expected path, Sourcetree will be installed there.

Regarding the automatic updates, can you confirm if they're still not happening after the steps above?

Can you send a screenshot of the status shown in Sourcetree and in the command line?

Best regards,

Ana

comments: author: bgf777
body: I'll try that. I'm pretty sure I actually did the above, but maybe I missed a folder. tx.


author: sidshetye
body: [@Ana Retamal](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1067288) do you have an update or a patch to address this? This is happening on all our Windows 10 machines now. Your steps helped on one machine but eventually it ran back into the same problem.


author: Bodroom
body: The first step worked for me (win 10). Even though I didn't find userhosts.  
Thanks!

UPD: After reinstalling windows the solution isn't working. Maybe I just got lucky when I tried it previously.


author: e-clin
body: I just started using Sourcetree (as of 7 April 2023) and encountered the same problem on Windows 11. Every time I started SourceTree it showed me the installation interface and I needed to skip through to the main UI. This is weird. I'm using Sourcetree v3.4.12 on Windows 11 Pro 21H2 Build 22000.1696.


author: sidshetye
body: Having the same issue on two other Windows 10 machines.

PS: You need comments (like Stackoverflow) or voting emoji (like GitHub) so people like me don't have to add this as an 'answer' to demonstrate breadth of impact.


author: bgf777
body: Well, I did all that, and I'm still seeing strange things:

1) Even though I "wiped my settings" the authorization dialog still knows the name of my github account. I don't know how it could know that, unless somehow my atlassian account knows that?

2) Ever time I launch sourcetree I still get the progress bars for "downloading" then "extracting". Is that normal?

It's post back when it actually does something wrong (showing wrong git status, or refuses to autoupdate.

At that point maybe I'll go back to 1.9. "the good old days".


Tags: windows

install