Error: remote manifest is missing [iOS]

[AlanJereb]

I'm trying to switch from the obsidian-git plugin to this one.

I have created an empty valut, set the token, owner's username, remote repo name and branch to pull, but I keep receiving the remote manifest is missing Error when trying to sync.
I tried enabling logging, but don't know where to find logs on my iOS device.

What am I missing?

[silvanocerza]

Did this happen for the first sync too? Is the local vault empty? What about the remote repo?

Have you tried resetting the plugin settings and metadata? You can find that in the settings at the bottom.

On iOS it's not easy to get the log files as it's inside the hidden config folder.
You might try and upload somewhere the whole vault folder from the Files app, then you can access the logs from the .obsidian folder. AirDropping it to a Mac works too.

[AlanJereb]

Did this happen for the first sync too? Is the local vault empty? What about the remote repo?

Have you tried resetting the plugin settings and metadata? You can find that in the settings at the bottom.

On iOS it's not easy to get the log files as it's inside the hidden config folder.
You might try and upload somewhere the whole vault folder from the Files app, then you can access the logs from the .obsidian folder. AirDropping it to a Mac works too.

I have solved the issue by creating a third new vault and naming it differently than the repository name I tried to sync. First two vaults had the same name, as the repo I was syncing.

Replies to your original questions:
Yes, I have removed the repo I had previously synced with obsidian-git (around 230 MD documents and 20 PNGs), created a new vault and tried to sync the repo with github-gitless-sync.

I have tried resetting the plugin twice: once by removing and reinstalling it and once using the reset functionality.

Sadly, I had no access to a MacOS environment at home to airdrop the file vault and inspect the logs.

If it happens again, I will upload the vault somewhere to inspect.

[silvanocerza]

I have solved the issue by creating a third new vault and naming it differently than the repository name I tried to sync. First two vaults had the same name, as the repo I was syncing.

Interesting. Remote repo and local vault having the same name shouldn't cause any issues. 🤔
I'll investigate this.

If it happens again, I will upload the vault somewhere to inspect.

Thanks, very much appreciated. Just be careful not to leak private stuff. :)

[AlanJereb]

I have solved the issue by creating a third new vault and naming it differently than the repository name I tried to sync. First two vaults had the same name, as the repo I was syncing.

Interesting. Remote repo and local vault having the same name shouldn't cause any issues. 🤔 I'll investigate this.

If it happens again, I will upload the vault somewhere to inspect.

Thanks, very much appreciated. Just be careful not to leak private stuff. :)

Sadly, it happened again after trying to sync the new changes.

I guess this log file entry won't be of much help:

{
	"timestamp": "2025-03-30T20:44:01.176Z",
	"level": "ERROR",
	"message": "Remote manifest is missing",
	"additional_data": {
		"files": {
			".gitignore": {
				"path": ".gitignore",
				"mode": "100644",
				"type": "blob",
				"sha": "60aeddb05b937ec26c66d38aa5f795b7dacd1d68",
				"size": 438,
				"url": "https://api.github.com/repos/AlanJereb/BlankPage/git/blobs/60aeddb05b937ec26c66d38aa5f795b7dacd1d68"
			},
			... redacted
		},
		"treeSha": "3919f7b232518642f1b1532e8d7a535b5041c491"
	}
}

[silvanocerza]

Can you check if in the remote repository the file github-sync-metadata.json inside .obsidian exists?
Are you syncing settings too?

[brookscl]

Same error here, but on macOS. This is on a first sync from my existing GitHub repo into an empty local vault. Not syncing settings. The initial sync partially worked then failed on an error which I didn't track but seemed to be a buffer error. Subsequent attempts are giving the remote manifest is missing error.

The github-sync-metadata.json file is 1 line, 324,443 columns.

[silvanocerza]

The initial sync partially worked then failed on an error which I didn't track but seemed to be a buffer error.

This could be the cause, how many files do you have in your vault? What's the size of the biggest one?

[brookscl]

This could be the cause, how many files do you have in your vault? What's the size of the biggest one?

Just over 5,000 files. Largest is 50M. I have some reference PDFs in the vault that are rather large that I'm considering refactoring out, but they are in there for now.

[Siete-F]

Thank you so much for building this tool!

Having the same issue on Android and Windows.

I checked the logs and can conclude the following (summarized by chatgpt)

The logs show repeated 403 Forbidden responses with the message:

"You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again."

It looks like the extension is hitting GitHub's secondary rate limits. This can happen even when the primary rate limit isn’t exceeded, often due to rapid bursts of requests (like creating blobs in quick succession).

Here’s a snippet from the log:

"message": "Failed to create blob",
"status": 403,
"json": {
  "message": "You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again.",
  "documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/free-pro-team@latest/rest/overview/rate-limits-for-the-rest-api#about-secondary-rate-limits"
}

Would it be possible to add some request throttling, batching, or retry logic with exponential backoff to reduce the risk of this happening? It might also help to include a delay between blob uploads.

Thanks a lot for your work on this extension—it's super useful! (And thats ChatGPT, but I agree :P)

Here an image of the un-wrapped log showing it goes well for hundreds of times, then it snaps:

[Siete-F]

{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:11.527Z","level":"INFO","message":"Starting first sync"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:12.053Z","level":"INFO","message":"Starting first sync from remote files"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:12.615Z","level":"INFO","message":"Received create event","additional_data":"boek"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:13.006Z","level":"INFO","message":"Received create event","additional_data":"dagboek/2009.md"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:13.015Z","level":"INFO","message":"Received create event","additional_data":"dagboek/2013.md"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:13.029Z","level":"INFO","message":"Received create event","additional_data":"dagboek/2010.md"}
.... 
(The former "Received create" kind of log occurred 866 times)

{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:23.960Z","level":"INFO","message":"Updated just downloaded created file","additional_data":"dagboek/2009.md"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:24.130Z","level":"INFO","message":"Updated just downloaded created file","additional_data":"dagboek/2013.md"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:24.150Z","level":"INFO","message":"Updated just downloaded created file","additional_data":"dagboek/2010.md"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:24.169Z","level":"INFO","message":"Updated just downloaded created file","additional_data":"dagboek/2007.md"}
... 
(The former kind of log occurred 853 times, though it seems to have logged the same entries... I can check which ones are missing if that would help)

{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:02:57.003Z","level":"ERROR","message":"Failed to create blob","additional_data":{"status":403,"headers":{"access-control-allow-origin":"*","access-control-expose-headers":"ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset","content-encoding":"gzip","content-security-policy":"default-src 'none'; base-uri 'self'; child-src github.githubassets.com github.com/assets-cdn/worker/ github.com/assets/ gist.github.com/assets-cdn/worker/; connect-src 'self' uploads.github.com www.githubstatus.com collector.github.com raw.githubusercontent.com api.github.com github-cloud.s3.amazonaws.com github-production-repository-file-5c1aeb.s3.amazonaws.com github-production-upload-manifest-file-7fdce7.s3.amazonaws.com github-production-user-asset-6210df.s3.amazonaws.com *.rel.tunnels.api.visualstudio.com wss://*.rel.tunnels.api.visualstudio.com objects-origin.githubusercontent.com copilot-proxy.githubusercontent.com proxy.individual.githubcopilot.com proxy.business.githubcopilot.com proxy.enterprise.githubcopilot.com; font-src github.githubassets.com; form-action 'self' github.com gist.github.com copilot-workspace.githubnext.com objects-origin.githubusercontent.com; frame-src viewscreen.githubusercontent.com notebooks.githubusercontent.com; img-src 'self' data: blob: github.githubassets.com media.githubusercontent.com camo.githubusercontent.com identicons.github.com avatars.githubusercontent.com private-avatars.githubusercontent.com github-cloud.s3.amazonaws.com objects.githubusercontent.com secured-user-images.githubusercontent.com/ user-images.githubusercontent.com/ private-user-images.githubusercontent.com opengraph.githubassets.com copilotprodattachments.blob.core.windows.net/github-production-copilot-attachments/ github-production-user-asset-6210df.s3.amazonaws.com customer-stories-feed.github.com spotlights-feed.github.com objects-origin.githubusercontent.com; manifest-src 'self'; media-src github.com user-images.githubusercontent.com/ secured-user-images.githubusercontent.com/ private-user-images.githubusercontent.com github-production-user-asset-6210df.s3.amazonaws.com gist.github.com; script-src github.githubassets.com; style-src 'unsafe-inline' github.githubassets.com; upgrade-insecure-requests; worker-src github.githubassets.com github.com/assets-cdn/worker/ github.com/assets/ gist.github.com/assets-cdn/worker/","content-type":"application/json; charset=utf-8","date":"Tue, 01 Apr 2025 20:02:56 GMT","referrer-policy":"origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin","retry-after":"60","server":"github.com","strict-transport-security":"max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload","vary":"Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With","x-content-type-options":"nosniff","x-github-media-type":"github.v3; format=json","x-github-request-id":"EDCD:89C79:25AC146:26A4862:67EC4670","x-xss-protection":"0"},"arrayBuffer":{},"json":{"documentation_url":"https://docs.github.com/free-pro-team@latest/rest/overview/rate-limits-for-the-rest-api#about-secondary-rate-limits","message":"You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again. If you reach out to GitHub Support for help, please include the request ID EDCD:89C79:25AC146:26A4862:67EC4670."},"text":"{\n  \"documentation_url\": \"https://docs.github.com/free-pro-team@latest/rest/overview/rate-limits-for-the-rest-api#about-secondary-rate-limits\",\n  \"message\": \"You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again. If you reach out to GitHub Support for help, please include the request ID EDCD:89C79:25AC146:26A4862:67EC4670.\"\n}"}}
...
 (Received former log 383 times)

{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:06:50.184Z","level":"INFO","message":"Starting sync"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:06:50.590Z","level":"ERROR","message":"Remote manifest is missing","additional_data":{"files":{".gitattributes":{"path":".gitattributes","mode":"100644","type":"blob","sha":"93c0e783b24e99c240f7da91edd65f23c04e9e7...
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:38:38.817Z","level":"INFO","message":"Starting sync"}
{"timestamp":"2025-04-01T20:38:39.164Z","level":"ERROR","message":"Remote manifest is missing","additional_data":{"files":{".gitattributes":{"path":".gitattributes","mode":"100644","type":"blob","sha":"93c0e783b24e99c240f7da91edd65f23c04e9e7...

I think I understand now that you download the remote manifest and compare that to the local manifest? That explains the error if the initial run failed. Hope this log helps.

[silvanocerza]

Thanks everyone for the reports, they helped quite a bit.

I attempted a fix by the way and released 1.0.7-beta, you can install it with BRAT.
Let me know if it works as I'm sure I managed to reproduce the same error you had.

[Siete-F]

I also suggested a PR :) didn't expect you to be so fast :P
Will test your latest 1.0.7-beta on windows.