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This page covers common problems you may encounter when installing, configuring, or running Gogs, organized by category.

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SSH

Possible cause: Gogs makes an HTTP request back to its own web service after every SSH push. If the server firewall or ISP blocks this loopback connection, the request will hang until it times out.Solution: Ensure that the server can reach itself on the configured HTTP port. Check firewall rules and any network policies that may prevent loopback connections.
Possible cause: You moved the Gogs binary to a different location from where it was originally installed, so the Git hooks reference a stale path.Solution: Go to the Admin Panel (/admin) and run these two tasks:
  1. Rewrite .ssh/authorized_keys file
  2. Resync pre-receive, update and post-receive hooks of all repositories
Possible cause: When using Git over SSH, Gogs relies on hook scripts to update the timeline and repository display. Several conditions can prevent these scripts from executing, especially when repositories are stored on a mounted device.Solution:
  • Ensure the mount point containing the repositories is not set as noexec. Run mount to check, and if necessary add the exec option to the mount point in /etc/fstab.
  • For vfat (and possibly cifs) mounts, ensure the uid, gid, and fmask options permit the Gogs user (or a group it belongs to) to execute files.
  • For network-mounted shares (NFS, Samba), ensure the server is not configured to disallow execution on the remote filesystem.

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Git

Error:
fatal: 'XX/XX.git' does not appear to be a git repository
Or: pushed commits but the repository still shows as bare.Possible cause: There are duplicate SSH keys in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. This commonly happens if you are (or were) running GitLab on the same system user.Solution: Edit ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and remove the old duplicate entry, keeping only the key that was added by Gogs.
Error:
repo.NewRepoContext(fail to set git user.email):
Possible cause: On Windows, this occurs when Git Bash was installed without enabling the cmd option, so git is not available on the system PATH.Solution: Reinstall Git for Windows and make sure the option to add Git to the system PATH (the cmd option) is enabled.

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Database

Error:
Error 1071: Specified key was too long; max key length is 1000 bytes
Possible cause: The database is using the MyISAM storage engine, which has a shorter maximum key length than InnoDB.Solution: After importing the initial schema, log into MySQL and switch the storage engine:
USE gogs;
SET GLOBAL storage_engine=INNODB;
Then re-run the Gogs installer at http://localhost:3000/install.
Error:
Database setting is not correct: This server only supports the insecure old password authentication.
Possible cause: The MySQL user’s password was only updated for the @localhost entry. A second entry in the user table (such as @%) still has the old-format password.Solution: Update the password for all host entries of the MySQL user. See this GitHub discussion for detailed steps.
Error: Pushing to a repository shows that the owner is not registered, or the user table does not exist.Possible cause: Gogs may be running as a system service and loading a different SQLite3 file than expected (for example, a relative path resolved differently).Solution: Use an absolute path for the SQLite3 database file in your custom/conf/app.ini configuration.

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Email

Possible cause: Google does not trust the server sending the email and requires additional verification.Solution:
  1. Visit https://accounts.google.com and log in.
  2. Go to https://accounts.google.com/DisplayUnlockCaptcha and click Continue.
  3. Copy the ContinueSignIn link from the Gogs server log and complete the sign-in.
  4. Check your spam folder in case your mail provider flagged the messages.
Error:
gomail: could not send email 1: Auth: 535
Possible cause: The SMTP password contains special characters that are not being interpreted correctly.Solution: Wrap the password in single quotes in your custom/conf/app.ini:
PASSWORD = 'P4§$w0rd'

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Windows

Error:
cygwin warning: MS-DOS style path detected ...
fatal: '/cygdrive/d/.../C:\Users\...' does not appear to be a git repository
Possible cause: Another shell (such as Cygwin) is installed on the system and its path style conflicts with the native Windows paths Gogs expects.Solution: Start Gogs using the default Windows Command Prompt (cmd.exe) instead of Cygwin or other alternative shells.
Error:
Resource interpreted as Stylesheet but transferred with MIME type application/x-css
Possible cause: The Windows registry has an incorrect Content Type value for the .css file extension.Solution: Open the Windows Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.css, and change the Content Type value to text/css.

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Other

Possible cause: This can happen for two reasons:
  1. Nginx is trying to resolve localhost as an IPv6 address, causing a delay.
  2. Gravatar avatar lookups are being attempted without a valid email address.
Solution:
  1. Use the explicit hostname 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost during the initial setup at http://gogs-server:3000/install.
  2. Either use a valid Gravatar email address for the administrator account or disable avatar lookup during the initial setup.
Error:
Error 1062: Duplicate entry 'Unknown-Mac' for key 'UQE_public_key_name'
Possible cause: A very early version of Gogs had a unique constraint (UQE_public_key_name) on SSH key names in the public_key table. This constraint is no longer needed.Solution: Manually delete the UQE_public_key_name unique index from the public_key table in your database.
Solution: Update the C library on your system:
sudo apt-get -t testing install libc6-dev
Error:
[Macaron] PANIC: session(start): mkdir data: permission denied
Possible cause: Gogs creates a data subdirectory in the same directory as the Gogs binary. The process does not have write permission to that directory.Solution: Ensure the user running Gogs has permission to create subdirectories in the directory where the Gogs binary is located.
Error:
! [remote rejected] master -> master (hook declined)
Possible cause: Git is unable to execute the update hook script.Solution: Make sure the bash shell is available on your system. All Gogs hook scripts require bash to run.