Cloning error - 'filename in tree entry contains backslash: '\''

[jjwagner]

Describe the bug

Cloning fails with a huge wall of useless text and no visible button to clear it.

Version & OS

Github desktop 2.5.2
Windows 10 Pro 2004

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Go to File->Clone Repository...
2. Click on URL, then paste 'https://github.com/jjwagner/moodle' as URL
3. Select a local path
4. Click Clone
5. "Receiving objects" will climb to about 68%, then apparently crash?
6. folder disappears from filesystem
7. Click on Help->Show logs in Explorer to see logs.

Expected behavior

I expected a clean fork of a popular project to clone using Github Desktop

Actual behavior

Github desktop crashes without any sort of explanation

Screenshots

Add screenshots to help explain your problem, if applicable.

Logs

2020-06-15T00:25:21.771Z - error: [ui] git -c credential.helper= -c protocol.version=2 clone --recursive --progress -- https://github.com/jjwagner/moodle.git D:\GitHub\moodle exited with an unexpected code: 128.

many lines later:

error: filename in tree entry contains backslash: ''

Additional context

[jjwagner]

Googling the error reveals that this was a problem for the Windows Git cli client. There's a workaround, discussed here:

https://github.saobby.my.eu.orgmunity/t/windows-git-clone-error-error-filename-in-tree-entry-contains-backslash-32-mib-s/2935

I can't find any way to run git commands with the Desktop, so I can't see how this workaround will help me.

[niik]

Hi @jjwagner, thanks for opening this and I'm sorry that you've encountered this problem! This seems to be the same issue as #9904 and it's caused by a protective measure added to mitigate a security vulnerability in Git for Windows (the official command line interface that GitHub Desktop relies on behind the scenes). In moodle/moodle@b4ede3f a file was created containing a \ character in its filename. This is forbidden on Windows and while it was swiftly removed in moodle/moodle@9a1a27b it's still triggering this behavior.

We're working on upgrading our built-in version of Git to a version which fixes this problem but until that release ships the temporary workaround is to either set the core.protectNTFS config variable as stated in the link you provided.

I can't find any way to run git commands with the Desktop, so I can't see how this workaround will help me.

GitHub Desktop doesn't ship a command line interface but you can download the Git command line tools for Windows from https://git-scm.com/download/win. It's also possible to open the Git config file in an editor and add it manually (the config file is located in your home directory and is named .gitconfig).

[core]
	protectNTFS = false

Please be aware that this will disable the security vulnerability protection mechanism until you remove that section again.

Cloning fails with a huge wall of useless text and no visible button to clear it.

Thanks for pointing this out, this has recently been addressed in #9945 and this is what I see when I attempt to clone that repository now. That fix will be included in the next production release of Github Desktop.

I'm going to close this issue in favor of #9904 so please follow along there for a notice of when we're getting ready to ship a fix.