GitHub not working: How to check if it is down and fix it

When GitHub is not working, first check githubstatus.com: if a component such as Git Operations, Pull Requests or Actions shows an incident, the outage is on GitHub's side and you can only wait. If everything is green, the problem is local. Test GitHub in a private window, sign in again, check your Git credentials or SSH key, and make sure your search query stays within GitHub's limits.

This guide walks through each check in the order that finds the cause fastest, from a full outage to a single failing git push.

Is GitHub down right now?

GitHub publishes the health of its services on the official GitHub Status page, and that page is the fastest way to tell an outage from a local problem. It lists each service separately, so you can see whether only one part is affected:

• Git Operations (clone, pull, push)
• Webhooks and API Requests
• Issues and Pull Requests
• Actions, Packages and Pages
• Codespaces and Copilot

If a component shows degraded performance or an outage, nothing you change on your computer will fix it. Open the incident to read GitHub's updates and wait for the resolution notice. The status page also lets you subscribe to incident notifications by email, SMS, Slack, webhook or an RSS and Atom feed, which is useful if your team depends on Actions or Git operations for deployments.

A partial outage explains a common pattern: the website loads, but pushes fail or workflows stay queued. Match the symptom to the component before you start troubleshooting. If the status page reports all systems operational, continue with the checks below.

GitHub website not loading or behaving oddly

A GitHub page that does not load, loads without styling or has buttons that do nothing is usually caused by the browser, not by GitHub. GitHub's supported browsers documentation recommends the latest version of Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari and warns that content blockers, ad blockers and other extensions can alter or block expected functionality.

Work through these checks:

1. Open github.com in a private or incognito window with extensions disabled. If it works there, an extension or stored site data is the cause.
2. Disable content blockers and script blockers for github.com one by one to find the culprit.
3. Delete cookies and cached files for github.com in your browser's privacy settings, then sign in again. A tool like Cookie Quick Manager for Firefox lets you remove only GitHub's cookies.
4. Update the browser to the current version.
5. Load another site to confirm the connection works, then try a different network such as a phone hotspot. Corporate proxies, firewalls and DNS filters sometimes block parts of GitHub.

If GitHub fails on one network only, test a different DNS resolver. Our guide to enabling secure DNS in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Brave shows how to switch resolvers in the browser itself.

GitHub search not working or returning no results

GitHub search fails silently when a query breaks one of its documented limits. The official troubleshooting search queries page sets these rules:

• Queries longer than 256 characters are not supported.
• A query cannot use more than five AND, OR or NOT operators.
• Searches have a time limit. When a query times out, GitHub shows the matches found so far and says a timeout occurred.

Code search has extra conditions, according to GitHub's code search documentation. You must be signed in to search code, even in public repositories. Files over 350 KiB, empty files, binary files, vendored or generated code and non-UTF-8 files are not indexed, and very large repositories may not be indexed at all.

Repository, organization and user names must be typed in full in code search, because partial matching and regular expressions are not supported for them. If a search for a known function returns nothing, shorten the query, remove operators, add the full owner/repository name and sign in. The newer engine behind these rules is covered in our look at GitHub's code search overhaul.

Git push, pull or clone fails with an authentication error

Git operations over HTTPS fail when Git sends your account password, because GitHub no longer accepts passwords for Git. GitHub stopped accepting account passwords for Git operations on August 13, 2021, as its changelog announcement explains. Old scripts and saved credentials still trigger "Authentication failed" errors today.

Fix it one of two ways, as described in GitHub's remote repositories documentation:

1. Create a personal access token in your GitHub settings and enter it when Git prompts for your password.
2. Install a credential helper such as Git Credential Manager, which signs you in through the browser and stores the credentials so Git remembers them.

If you replaced an old password or token, remove the stale entry from your operating system's credential store (Windows Credential Manager, macOS Keychain or your Linux secret store). Otherwise Git keeps sending the outdated credential and the error returns after every fix.

Also confirm that the remote URL is correct with git remote -v. A typo in the owner or repository name, or a repository that was renamed, made private or deleted, produces "Repository not found" errors that look like an authentication problem.

GitHub SSH connection not working

An SSH problem shows up as "Permission denied (publickey)" or a connection that times out, and GitHub provides a test command for both cases. Run this in a terminal, as described in testing your SSH connection:

ssh -T [email protected]

A working setup answers with "Hi USERNAME! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access." If you see "Permission denied", your public key is not added to your GitHub account or the SSH agent is not offering the right key. Add the key under SSH and GPG keys in your account settings and try again.

If the command hangs or times out, a firewall is probably blocking port 22. GitHub allows SSH over the HTTPS port. Test it with:

ssh -T -p 443 [email protected]

If that works, add these lines to your ~/.ssh/config file so every Git command uses port 443:

Host github.com
Hostname ssh.github.com
Port 443
User git

Note that the hostname for port 443 is ssh.github.com, not github.com.

Which GitHub problem do you have?

Most GitHub problems fall into a handful of patterns, and the symptom points to the fix. Use this table to jump to the right check.

FAQ

Related: how GitHub code search works, GitHub Copilot vs. ChatGPT for coding