All builds are failing with the same error - github Permission denied

jorge

21 Jul, 2026 09:39 AM

Hi,

All our current builds are failing due to a Git issue when appveyor is trying to clone the repo. We are using the 'Visual Studio 2022' build image. We tried re-adding some projects from GitHub as fresh ones and even switching to the 'Previous Visual Studio 2022' image, but the build process continues to fail.

Build started
git clone -q --branch=feature/xxxx git@github.com:ExampleOrg/ExampleProject.git C:\projects\example-project
git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
Command exited with code 128

Thanks in advance.

Jorge

  1. #1 Posted by Feodor Fitsner Support staff on 21 Jul, 2026 03:07 PM

    Hi Jorge,

    I see the last few builds are green. Are you still experiencing that error?

  2. #2 Posted by jorge on 22 Jul, 2026 08:34 AM

    Hello.

    We've restored AppVeyor's access to our GitHub organization by installing it as a GitHub App rather than at the user level, and it appears to be working again.

  3. #3 Posted by Feodor Fitsner Support staff on 23 Jul, 2026 02:29 PM

    Good, thanks for the update!

  4. #4 Posted by jorge on 23 Jul, 2026 04:41 PM

    Hi Feodor,

    When attempting to launch a new build for a project that is using a machine hosted on our end (BYOC with a Windows Agent on an Azure VM), the process failed and got stuck indefinitely while trying to clone the repository. I assume that using AppVeyor through the GitHub App does not work in this scenario; or do we need to update the agent?

    To restore access to GitHub, I had to fall back to the traditional method, granting permissions through a user account rather than the GitHub App.

    Regards

  5. #5 Posted by Feodor Fitsner Support staff on 24 Jul, 2026 04:02 PM

    Hi Jorge,

    When using GitHub App a private repo is cloned with GitHub App installation token. I guess you probably need to unset credential store which is on by default on Git for Windows: https://github.com/appveyor/build-images/blob/master/scripts/Window...

    Hope that helps.

  6. Feodor Fitsner closed this discussion on 23 Sep, 2026 09:03 PM.

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