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SourceTree insists in asking me to provide Microsoft VisualStudio credentials every few minutes.

It's very annoying. It completely disrupts the work-flow.

I'm working exclussively on php- and linux-based repositories being stored at gitlab, bitbucket and github. But sourcetree insists in asking for credentials of visual studio over and over and over again.

I may have over 50 repos in the source tree list. I don't remember any one of those to have any git-storage related to Microsoft except for the fact of using github.

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  • Why does it happen?
  • How can I prevent it?
Xavi Montero
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  • Try to reinstall git without "git credential manager" (uncheck during installation). – harrymc Sep 21 '19 at 10:05
  • I don't think I have that installed and I never heard about that before... I'm using git in this comptuter since 4 years. How do I know if that is actually in my computer before proceeding? I mean: Is is an application that appears in the control panel? Or is is like an "extension" or something I have to look for from inside another specific application? – Xavi Montero Sep 21 '19 at 14:04
  • Ignore it if this is not a new installation. So what has changed? – harrymc Sep 21 '19 at 14:45
  • What has changes is using SourceTree: until yesterday I was using GitKraken with no pain at all. As GitKraken has stopped being free, I changed into SourceTree. I downloaded and installed SourceTree v3.2.6. I have not explicitly changed the git core itself. `git --version` says I'm in `2.8.3.windows.1`. making `ls -l /mingw64/bin/git` says it's as old as `may. 20 2016`. I've not had any issue with this git core for this 3 years. The prompt appears when changing into SourceTree. I seems it must be a SourceTree thing, not a git thing. – Xavi Montero Sep 21 '19 at 21:40
  • Some possibilities: (1) In SourceTree, navigate to *Tools > Options > Git* and look for the Git Version section. Compare Git version with the system-installed and the one embedded in SourceTree. Try switching the version. (2) Try to clean up credentials from Windows Credential Manager. (3) A temporary solution is said to click the "Show hosted repositories" icon at the bottom-left when you open source tree, "Edit Accounts", click the account and "Edit", then "Change Password". – harrymc Sep 22 '19 at 06:40

1 Answers1

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Finally I found it. I answer myself:

Clicking the Menu Tools | Process Viewer... opens a separate window which displays the activity log.

Leaving this window open for 10 or 15 minutes, you can see there's a huuuuuuuuuge enormous amount of background things going on in the process.

The look of this window is similar to this:

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One of the things I observed is that SourceTree insists in making a "for each" of aaaaaall the repositories that it knows and make real internet connections for all of them. Having 3 or 4 repos could mean something normal, but it detected about 100 repos in my computer.

I'm using SourceTree v3.x but it seems that years ago we had SourceTree v1.x in this computer. The old unused forgotten repos of inactive dead projects are still being recognized by SourceTree (maybe because it's importing some old config file or so) and suddently things that were dead 3 or 4 years ago, came to life.

Not only they came to life, but they came to life every 10 minutes!!!!!

For some reason two of the old repos have some kind of connection to something connected to microsoft. I don't really know the reason, but I really don't mind, they are just dead code. I just want those files to rest in a deep forgotten dir and nothing else.

So the thing was telling SourceTree something like do not do anything I don't explicitly tell you to do AKA leave my old code alone.

And fortunately the possibility is there: Click the menu Tools | Options then select General and navigate to Repo settings.

There you'll find a box named Check default remotes for updates every XX minutes. Uncheck the box.

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Boom. Done. 24hrs without the popup. Now the only activity I see is the one related to the repo I'm working on and the rest of the repos are just left alone.

Xavi Montero
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