fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

[mareg]

Suddenly my deployment process stopped working, it was working without issues a week ago, the error I am getting is this:

✈︎ Deploying master on project.example.org
✔ Executing task deploy:prepare
✔ Executing task deploy:lock
✔ Executing task deploy:release
➤ Executing task deploy:update_code
Cloning into '/var/www/project.example.org/releases/465'...
ERROR: Repository not found.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
Connection to project.example.org closed.
Cloning into '/var/www/project.example.org/releases/465'...
ERROR: Repository not found.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.
Connection to project.example.org closed.
✔ Executing task deploy:failed
✔ Executing task deploy:unlock

In Process.php line 250:
                                                                                                                                                               
  The command "ssh -A -tt project.example.org 'cd /var/www/project.example.org && (/usr/bin/git clone -b "master" --recursive  [email protected]:mareg/project.git /var/www/project.example.org/releases/465 2>&1)'" failed.                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                               
  Exit Code: 128(Invalid exit argument)                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                               
  Working directory: /home/marek/Workspace/project                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                               
  Output:                                                                                                                                                      
  ================                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                                                               
  Error Output:                                                                                                                                                
  ================                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                                               

deploy [-p|--parallel] [-l|--limit LIMIT] [--no-hooks] [--log LOG] [--roles ROLES] [--hosts HOSTS] [-o|--option OPTION] [--] [<stage>]

When I connect to the server, and I run the command by hand, it works just fine:

cd /var/www/project.example.org && (/usr/bin/git clone -b "master" --recursive [email protected]:mareg/project.git /var/www/project.example.org/releases/465 2>&1)
Cloning into '/var/www/project.example.org/releases/465'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 19995, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (1019/1019), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (403/403), done.
remote: Total 19995 (delta 742), reused 695 (delta 615), pack-reused 18976 (from 2)
Receiving objects: 100% (19995/19995), 83.92 MiB | 22.31 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (11595/11595), done.

I checked the github permissions and it works as well:

$ ssh -T [email protected]
Hi mareg/project! You've successfully authenticated, but GitHub does not provide shell access.

It's set up, as recommended, with a deploy key.

Any idea why deployer wouldn't be able to fetch the repository, but me, connected as same user, can do it without issues? I'm running out of ideas. As you see, it worked fine for 464 releases before 😅

[mareg]

For some reason, I had to update my local ~/.ssh/config with:

ForwardingAgent yes

And set up a new deployment key.

[m1rm]

as of yesterday (April 7th 2025) our deployments broke without any changes. We encountered the exact same issue as described above and the ForwardingAgent did not fix it. Anybody having insights on what can have happened/experienced the same?

[m1rm]

For anybody else coming along: in our case the error was caused by one repository in our organization having a deploy-key of the name "runner" defined

[mareg]

@m1rm just updated my answer, in my case I had to do both - enable forwarding agent, and create a new deployment key.

[kevin-lucas-simon]

I had the same issue, but in a different situation:
I moved to a new company in the same holding and kept my laptop, where I regenerated a new SSH key.

Turns out, that Deployer only takes the first SSH key for the connection and ignores all other keys. The solution is to delete the old ones. After that, Deployer sees only the correct key. Then the SSH Agent has to be cleared.

Following commands can be helpful

• Check if multiple identities are saved: ssh-add
• Remove the old keys, for example: rm ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ~/.ssh/id_rsa
• Clear the agents identies: ssh-add -D
• Check if it is working: ssh-add -l