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Git push results in "Authentication Failed"


I have been using GitHub for a little while, and I have been fine with git add, git commit, and git push, so far without any problems. Suddenly I am having an error that says:

fatal: Authentication Failed

In the terminal I cloned a repository, worked on a file and then I used git add to add the file to the commit log and when I did git commit, it worked fine. Finally, git push asks for username and password. I put those in correctly and every time I do this, it says the same error.

What is the cause of this problem and how can I fix it?

The contents of .git/config are:

[core]
        repositoryformatversion = 0
        filemode = true
        bare = false
        logallrefupdates = true
[remote "origin"]
        url = http://www.github.com/######/Random-Python-Tests
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
[branch "master"]
        remote = origin
        merge = refs/heads/master
[user]
        name = #####
        email = ############

Solution

  • If you enabled two-factor authentication in your GitHub account you won't be able to push via HTTPS using your accounts password. Instead you need to generate a personal access token. This can be done in the application settings of your GitHub account. Using this token as your password should allow you to push to your remote repository via HTTPS. Use your username as usual.

    Creating a personal access token

    You may also need to update the origin for your repository if it is set to HTTPS. Do this to switch to SSH:

    git remote -v
    git remote set-url origin [email protected]:USERNAME/REPONAME.git