Reputation: 6327

Fix GitLab error: "you are not allowed to push code to protected branches on this project"?

I have a problem when I push my code to git while I have developer access in my project, but everything is okay when I have master access. Where is the problem come from? And how to fix it?

Error message:

error: You are not allowed to push code to protected branches on this project.
...
error: failed to push some refs to ...

Upvotes: 629

Answers (19)

mayur makwana

Reputation: 71

Enabling force Push works for me too.

16.2 does not *upport Push, so this works for me too:

Upvotes: 7

Emeka Elo

Reputation: 506

Solution: Rename your branch

I encountered this error when I was trying to push my own new branch so I was surprised. It seemed it was seeing the branch as protected. It turns out that the name pattern my branch started with had the same pattern as the protected "main" branch for the sprint. So I'm guessing there's some form of regex protecting all branches that start that way. Hence all subsequent sprint branches of that pattern gets protected.

sprint branches: abc_2023_1, abc_2023_2, abc_2023_3
my initial branch name: abc_2023_3_launch_that_awesome_rocket
my renamed branch name: launch_that_awesome_rocket

Was asking myself how is it that I've made countless branches and never started them this way except this one. Why did I do that...lol.(I checked out to a new branch via intelliJ and continued with the prefilled name instead of clearing it😬)

Thanks to my teammate who pointed the pattern thing out.

Upvotes: 1

Hrusikesh

Reputation: 651

In my case the above one works but just to clarify the steps with little more details so I just followed the below steps to remove the above error and push my code

Step-1: Go to your project settings

Step-2: Then click on repository

Step-3: Go to protected branches, expand and enable Allowed to force push as mentioned in below screenshot

Here successfullly pushed my code without any issue

Upvotes: 11

José

Reputation: 21

This works for me and it was effective

Upvotes: 0

VonC

Reputation: 1323045

Alternative solution, with GitLab 13.11 (April 2021)

Force push option for protected branches

It’s best practice to prevent force push on Git repos, but exceptional cases may occasionally require it.

Temporarily removing branch protections in order to conduct a force push may not always be ideal as it requires maintainer access, and causes the settings for branch protection to be lost.

GitLab 13.11 introduces a new Allow force push setting for protected branches, which enables users in the Allowed to push list to force push.

See Documentation and Issue.

Also, GitLab 16.2 (July 2023) adds:

Allow initial push to protected branches

In previous versions of GitLab, when a default branch was fully protected, only project maintainers and owners could push an initial commit to a default branch.

This caused problems for developers who created a new project, but couldn’t push an initial commit to it because only the default branch existed.

With the Fully protected after initial push setting, developers can push the initial commit to the default branch of a repository, but cannot push any commits to the default branch afterward. Similar to when a branch is fully protected, project maintainers can always push to the default branch but no one can force push.

See Documentation and Issue.

Upvotes: 23

ravthiru

Reputation: 9623

When you have error message remote: You are not allowed to push code to this project. and The requested URL returned error: 403

Try setting the git user,

To prompt username before pushing the Code, use

$ git config --local credential.helper ""

After entering Username and Password and successful login

$ git push

Upvotes: 6

lucky.expert

Reputation: 783

For me the problem was the user trying to push simply was not invited to the project. I had to go to Project Information > Members and invite the member as a developer so they had access to push.

Upvotes: 0

Chris

Reputation: 306

I encountered a similar issue. However, the problem was that the repository was accidentally archived! You can check by going to the repository (in Gitlab at least) and it showed the following message "Archived project! Repository and other project resources are read-only." In order to push to it, we had to unarchive it.

Upvotes: 0

Mizanur Rahman

Reputation: 117

To the settings after opening the branch in git. Then allow force push.

Upvotes: 8

Curious Watcher

Reputation: 689

For me, it was an issue of choosing Developer rather than Maintainer position while creating a personal access token.

Choosing Maintainer solved the situation.

Upvotes: 3

mochadwi

Reputation: 1268

This is considered as features in Gitlab.

Maintainer / Owner access is never able to force push again for default & protected branch, as stated in this docs

Upvotes: 4

aloisdg

Reputation: 23511

I was on Windows when this problem appeared.

The error is strange because it happens before I could enter my username and my password. What if there was a cache or something like this? I dig it online and found this answer on gitlab's support forum:

I open "Control Panel => User Accounts => Manage your credentials => Windows Credentials" I found two for https://@github.com and one was the wrong user. I deleted it and on the next "git push" I was reprompted and provided the correct credentials and it worked! Some other notes - this could have happened with any git remote.

In the Windows Credentials, I found two GitLab entries for an old account. I remove both and now it works!

The panel:

Upvotes: 4

kris

Reputation: 1209

Simple solution for this problem to have quick chat with person who has owner role in gitlab. He can push one file READ.md or similar to just start with. Later, everything will be working as earlier.

Upvotes: 1

Hcorg

Reputation: 12178

there's no problem - everything works as expected.

In GitLab some branches can be protected. By default only Maintainer/Owner users can commit to protected branches (see permissions docs). master branch is protected by default - it forces developers to issue merge requests to be validated by project maintainers before integrating them into main code.

You can turn on and off protection on selected branches in Project Settings (where exactly depends on GitLab version - see instructions below).

On the same settings page you can also allow developers to push into the protected branches. With this setting on, protection will be limited to rejecting operations requiring git push --force (rebase etc.)

Since GitLab 9.3

Go to project: "Settings" → "Repository" → "Expand" on "Protected branches"

I'm not really sure when this change was introduced, screenshots are from 10.3 version.

Now you can select who is allowed to merge or push into selected branches (for example: you can turn off pushes to master at all, forcing all changes to branch to be made via Merge Requests). Or you can click "Unprotect" to completely remove protection from branch.

Since GitLab 9.0

Similarly to GitLab 9.3, but no need to click "Expand" - everything is already expanded:

Go to project: "Settings" → "Repository" → scroll down to "Protected branches".

Pre GitLab 9.0

Project: "Settings" → "Protected branches" (if you are at least 'Master' of given project).

Then click on "Unprotect" or "Developers can push":

Upvotes: 948

Barath Ravichander

Reputation: 169

Try making changes as per link

https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/protected_branches.html

make the project unprotected for maintainer or developer for you to commit

Upvotes: 2

gogasca

Reputation: 10048

The above solutions explain clearly what the problem is; when you don't have control over the repo, the best way to submit your code is to create a Fork of the original repo and submit your code to this new repo so later you can push it to the original one.

Upvotes: 0

jean pierre huart

Reputation: 388

I experienced the same problem on my repository. I'm the master of the repository, but I had such an error.

I've unprotected my project and then re-protected again, and the error is gone.

We had upgraded the gitlab version between my previous push and the problematic one. I suppose that this upgrade has created the bug.

Upvotes: 1

Vahid F

Reputation: 458

I have encountered this error on "an empty branch" on my local gitlab server. Some people mentioned that "you can not push for the first time on an empty branch". I tried to create a simple README file on the gitlab via my browser. Then everything fixed amazingly and the problem sorted out!! I mention that I was the master and the branch was not protected.

Upvotes: 3

krekto

Reputation: 1487

for the GitLab Enterprise Edition 9.3.0

By default, master branch is protected so unprotect :)

1-Select you "project"

2-Select "Repository"

3-Select "branches"

4-Select "Project Settings"

5-In "Protected Branches" click to "expand"

6-and after click in "unprotect" button

Upvotes: 61

Fix GitLab error: &quot;you are not allowed to push code to protected branches on this project&quot;?

Answers (19)

Force push option for protected branches

Allow initial push to protected branches

Since GitLab 9.3

Since GitLab 9.0

Pre GitLab 9.0

Related Questions

Fix GitLab error: "you are not allowed to push code to protected branches on this project"?