github · Git
The message
remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021.
What it means
GitHub stopped accepting account passwords over https in 2021 — your password is not wrong, the method itself is no longer accepted. It appears when your stored credential is an old password, or when you typed one at the prompt. To stay on https, put a personal access token in the password field; otherwise switch to the ssh address with git remote set-url origin. Changing the remote address is one line of config in your own clone, so it touches no commits and is reversible at any time.
The fix
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:user/repo.git- Printed by
- github
- Git
- 29
Almost every git error is a refusal that means "doing that from this state would lose something"; fatal: means git stopped without changing anything, and the hint: lines under the first line usually carry the actual remedy.
Reading an error message
- Read from the first line down. The lower you go the more it is about the tool’s internals; the cause is usually at the top.
- If there is a file and a line number, start there — not the top stack frame, but the topmost line that names a file you wrote.
- Search the message verbatim, but strip your own paths and variable names first; those are what stop the search from matching.
- The same condition is worded differently across tool versions. If results look wrong, add the version number to the query.
- Before pasting a fix, check what it throws away. Some of these cannot be undone.
Common questions
Q. What does “remote: Support for password authentication was removed on August 13, 2021.” mean?
GitHub stopped accepting account passwords over https in 2021 — your password is not wrong, the method itself is no longer accepted. It appears when your stored credential is an old password, or when you typed one at the prompt. To stay on https, put a personal access token in the password field; otherwise switch to the ssh address with git remote set-url origin. Changing the remote address is one line of config in your own clone, so it touches no commits and is reversible at any time.
Q. How do I fix it?
git remote set-url origin git@github.com:user/repo.git — before running it, check the explanation above for what this command discards.
Q. Which tool prints this?
github. It sits under Git, and the message runs to 11 words.