PSA: YunoHost throwing 500 on app install

Support
1

EDIT: Official tracking topic: App management (install/upgrade/restore) broken due to github issue

I have searched the forum for similar issues

on

This category is for general issues(=something is broken) regarding YunoHost, NOT apps.

on

This form is written in English but feel free to write in French if you’re more comfortable!

on

What type of hardware are you using

VPS bought online

What YunoHost version are you running

12.1.40.1

How are you able to access your server

The webadmin
SSH
Direct access via physical keyboard/screen

Are you in a special context or did you perform specific tweaking on your YunoHost instance ?

no

Describe your issue

Currently it is highly unlikely to get a working app install on Yunohost, API returns HTTP/500 with log of yunohost-api implying cloning of package repo failed.

This is NOT a YunoHost issue. This is caused by Github now randomly requiring credentials for cloning public repos. The change was (to my knowledge) not announced in any way hence I assume it’s a Github bug.

This has also broke YunoHost CI, i.e. here (the job had to be manually cancelled for CI to proceed with next job).

Stay tuned for updates.

EDIT: Tracking community discussion: Unauthenticated clone of a public repo intermittently returns 401 (prompts for Username) from CI workers · community · Discussion #206581 · GitHub
EDIT2: Someone from the staff confirmed they’re looking into it: Unauthenticated clone of a public repo intermittently returns 401 (prompts for Username) from CI workers · community · Discussion #206581 · GitHub
EDIT3: LOL this is officially a feature now: Unauthenticated clone of a public repo intermittently returns 401 (prompts for Username) from CI workers · community · Discussion #206581 · GitHub

Share relevant logs or error messages

2026-09-02 14:18:27,770 DEBUG    yunohost.app._git_clone_light - Fetching https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/rallly_ynh (branch=master, revision=471efe9044a1406b6f1ddfdf4379c5263bae7c4c
2026-09-02 14:18:28,218 ERROR    yunohost.app._extract_app_from_gitrepo - Command '['git', 'ls-remote', '--symref', 'https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/rallly_ynh', 'HEAD']' returned non-zero exit status 128.
2026-09-02 14:18:28,219 DEBUG    moulinette.actionsmap.process - action executed in 0.449s
2

Hello,

I have same problem to install an application on OVH VM

3

App installation/update failures – Git HTTP/2 issue with GitHub

Hello,

I am experiencing the same issue on several independent YunoHost servers, hosted on different networks.

The problem affects several applications, both when installing a new app and when updating existing apps.

YunoHost fails while fetching application sources, typically with:

Could not fetch source files, is the URL correct?

and:

git ls-remote ... returned non-zero exit status 128

Internet connectivity itself seems fine. For example:

curl -4I https://github.com

returns:

HTTP/2 200

However, Git behaves differently.

With the default configuration:

git ls-remote https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/synapse_ynh.git HEAD

Git unexpectedly asks for GitHub credentials and then fails with:

error: RPC failed; HTTP 401 curl 22 The requested URL returned error: 401
fatal: expected flush after ref listing

But forcing HTTP/1.1 works immediately:

git -c http.version=HTTP/1.1 ls-remote https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/synapse_ynh.git HEAD

Output:

2cee01e894e7e6cdbd383635c4f035bfb5147e50    HEAD

Git version on the tested server:

git version 2.39.5

There is no custom Git HTTP/proxy configuration and no proxy environment variable.

Since the same kind of failure occurs on several YunoHost servers and with different applications.

Is this a known issue or a recent regression?

Thanks.

4

Hello,

I can confirm this. I have the same error trying to update apps.

5

Hello,

I have updated nextcloud successfully earlier today but I can’t install any app. I have the same error than @py_more :

Could not fetch source files, is the URL correct?
6

Thanks for reporting this issue.
See App management (install/upgrade/restore) broken due to github issue for up to date info

7

@py_more forcing HTTP/1.1 Indeed does the trick, won’t mark it as a solution as it’s not generally applicable but it got me unstuck :flexed_biceps:

Thanks!

8

Hello,

Thanks @py_more for your patch proposition.

I have extended it in line 813 of “src/utils/app_utils.py”:

subprocess.check_call(
  ["git", "init", dest_dir], stdout=subprocess.DEVNULL, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT
)
cmds = [
  ["git", "-c", "http.version=HTTP/1.1", "remote", "add", "origin", url],
  ["git", "-c", "http.version=HTTP/1.1", "fetch", "--depth=1", "origin", ref],
  ["git", "-c", "http.version=HTTP/1.1", "reset", "--hard", "FETCH_HEAD"],
]

And in “yunohost/helpers.v2.1.d/0-utils” (line 640):

if ! [ -d "$dest_dir/.git" ]; then
        git init -q
        git -c http.version=HTTP/1.1 remote add origin "$url"
else
        git -c http.version=HTTP/1.1 remote set-url origin "$url"
fi
    git -c http.version=HTTP/1.1 fetch -q --tags --prune origin "$branch"
    git -c http.version=HTTP/1.1 reset --hard origin/"$branch"
popd || return 1

And now, I can to install all application :slight_smile:

9

Actually only git fetch commands need this treatment.

Note that subset of these changes was pushed to yunohost/dev branch so a fix may be coming in soon :trade_mark: , see [fix] git ls-remote ask for credentials · YunoHost/yunohost@5891385 · GitHub

10

@orhtej2 , yes, only for fetch command need this treatment.

But, the fix in yunohost/dev manage only 1 “fetch” and 2 other must be corrected too.

11

Sure sure, I’m not saying you’re wrong.

12

Hello,

The problem now seems to be resolved on my side.

The following command now works normally without asking for GitHub credentials:

git ls-remote https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/synapse_ynh.git HEAD

Output:

2cee01e894e7e6cdbd383635c4f035bfb5147e50    HEAD

The previous installation page error for Synapse in the YunoHost web interface has also disappeared.

So at least on this server, Git access to the YunoHost application repository appears to be working normally again.

Thanks for the quick investigation…

13

There’s no fix on YNH side yet and the problem is intermittent, the issue is still outstanding GH side.

14

I was not aware on that part. SO i guess we could publish the fix anyway (as on my servers no bug happens now, i was wrongly thinking it was solve for everybody).