GitHub Classroom: "Repository Access Issue"

[gchallen]

Hi everyone,

We're using GitHub Classroom to help students set up repositories in my ~1000 student CS1 course at Illinois. Overall it works great! However, it seems like every semester we run into some strange issue.

This term one student arrives at the following screen when trying to accept the Classroom invitation:

I've checked both through Classroom and in our organization where the repositories are created, and can verify that there are no repositories created for this student. In the past when we've had repository creation issues I've been able to delete the semi-created repository and start over. But in this case I'm at a loss for what to do. I'm suggesting that the student try creating a new GitHub account and see if that helps, but that's not a great workaround.

I'm happy to provide more details if someone from GitHub can look into this more closely. Thanks in advance!

A suggestion...(optional)

No response

[girodg]

any updates on this? I have a student encountering the same problem.

[chrissexton]

If your organization has 2FA requirement turned on, be sure the student actually has their account set up for it.

[gchallen]

FYI, at least in the case posted above the student's GitHub account had actually been disabled. So that's something else to check.

[LiliWeiSE]

Hi,
May I know how we can check whether a student's GitHub account was actually disabled?

[Mayank447]

I had the same issue. Go the student's repository, in my case it was created but when the student tried accessing it, it showed the same error. Manually invite him and the error should get fixed.

[svlasnik-uno]

This was how I fixed the issue as well.

[StefanidisK]

Can you please give some more information about how to do to this?

[emmett-tomai]

@StefanidisK go to the student repo through the assignment list, click settings > collaborators and teams. under manage access you'll see a pending invite. for whatever reason, that invite is invalid, so delete it and re-invite (Add people). use their github username and grant write access.

when the student goes back to github the new invite will either automatically pop up for them, or they can click on the inbox icon in the upper-right with the blue dot and accept.

about half my students are getting hit with this this semester.

[StefanidisK]

@StefanidisK go to the student repo through the assignment list, click settings > collaborators and teams. under manage access you'll see a pending invite. for whatever reason, that invite is invalid, so delete it and re-invite (Add people). use their github username and grant write access.

when the student goes back to github the new invite will either automatically pop up for them, or they can click on the inbox icon in the upper-right with the blue dot and accept.

about half my students are getting hit with this this semester.

Thank you. Someone else sent me these instructions too and I got it working. Thanks!

[norandomtechie]

Just wanted to drop my two cents on this:

This appears to be happening for every student in our course as of February (about 200 this semester), not just the one. Thankfully it does seem like the repositories are getting created, but the issue has still not been fixed - if anything, it's worse.

[CodyHenrichsen-CTEC]

I just had three students with the same error. I am going to try resetting the repo.

[CodyHenrichsen-CTEC]

Deleted repo and recreate is the same error for students. up to 5 now

[Parsa-Rajabi]

Following this post for updates. The issue has bubbled up again -- can anyone from @github-staff comment?

[vincentsijben]

Just happened to 2 of my students as well. Different organisations... Hope its a bug and its fixed soon 😉

[Parsa-Rajabi]

Hey Vincent, have you thought about any work arounds for the current issue? (e.g. using a different platform?) These issues are making me re-think using GH Classroom moving forward...

[vincentsijben]

nah, just wait until its fixed 😉 hopefully within 24 hours 😆

[gbacon]

I was able to work around the problem by deleting the assignment repos created for the students who got the error and having them reaccept the assignment.

[nelsonlim]

Just happened to my students as well. While we can manually add students. It does become a pain on scale.

[Mitchman215]

Also is happening in our course for a lot of students, have to manually add

[Ujoa]

@github-staff

[lisamru]

Ran into this issue as well today for 2 students. They were able to access their first two assignments with no issues and could not access the third.

[lisamru]

Just had another section and another student is unable to access. Hopefully this is resolved by the time we have our official lab on Thursday!

[ekgibbons]

Same issue with my courses. It seems like any assignments that were accepted yesterday were okay. Anything that was accepted today ran into this issue.

[JoshIsomLehigh]

Several students successfully accepted assignments this morning, but as of several hours ago students report "when I try to accept the assignment on github it says that I no longer have access" I submitted a ticket at https://support.github.com/

[suhasdara]

Now students are also getting invalid invite issues to the github classroom i.e. they aren't even able to accept the assignments. This is getting ridiculous.

Please help @github-staff

[gmaratos]

I am actually a little surprised that we have heard nothing. Has anyone gotten a response from tickets they filed?

[ekgibbons]

I can refresh the invites using the script posted above, but it is annoying to have to do this multiple times per assignment. As an instructor, I hate the optics of using a system that is buggy. I'm shocked that @github-staff hasn't chimed in on this, let alone fix it.

[catherine-leung]

Here is one possible workaround... the issue seems to be with individual assignments (at least that is what the case was for me). These are outside collaborators. However, group assignments actually add students to the org.

Instead of doing individual assignments, do a group assignment, with a max group size of 1. When you set up a group assignment you have to name the set of teams... so you can give it some name.. for example "solo". The first time, student must supply a team name (you can give instructions like "use github id" or "use your first name") and then on second assignment, you can do the same but instead of naming the team use the existing "solo" team set and it won't make them put it a team name again... a hassle on first assignment but gets all the students into the org without you having to do it yourself.

[jfleblanc]

The "Team" workaround seems to work for us.. for now.
But it really sucks that GitHub Classroom is the "poor child" of GitHub and that they don't give a damn about this situation just by looking at this years old thread without any intervention from the team itself.

cc:
@johndbritton, @mozzadrella, @d12, @BenEmdon, @srinjoym, @tarebyte, @github

[johndbritton]

I haven't worked at GitHub since 2019.

You should contact GitHub Support.

[paul-reynolds-byu]

I'm having the same problem. We tried some of the solutions above, but this is making me rethink using Github for this

[lcnature]

Same problem. I don't get a clue of what is the cause, and how the app posted here solves it.

[beak85]

It would be nice if they at least told us they are aware of the issue and are working on it.

[sthompson-athenian]

This is really bad. I teach multiple CS classes that use Github Classroom and getting students to accept assignments (there are sometimes two per day—one in-class and one for homework) is now a huge pain—about 1/4 of the acceptances fail.

Really hoping someone takes a look soon.

[Mr-Azam-AHS]

I don't have many students but half of them are not able to accept the assignment.
This is my first time using GithHub Classroom for my classes. It's relieving to see that this was not user error on my part setting up our first assignment.

Hope this gets fixed soon.

[egao-sjs]

Also struggling with this issue. Earlier this week, we had probably 10% of students who accepted the assignment get the issue. This morning it's close to 70-90%.

[joeyorofino]

I would also appreciate any help with this issue. In the past, I was not required to formally add students to the organization for this to work. Considering there's no straightforward way to en masse add people to an org (I'm looking into gh cli), it would be really helpful if we could get some assistance with this issue.

Edit: If it helps with the troubleshooting, the repos appear correctly. However, when students attempt to access them, they are unable to do so. I can see all the repos appear to have been created successfully in the classroom.

[catherine-leung]

If you create a group assignment with a group size of 1, each student who accepts the invitation will be added to your org and a separate team. that team will be assigned to a repo.

Note that this method of creating assignments for students seems to work as the students are not added as outside collaborators but members.

Another way to add everyone, is to create a group of assignment with 1 team max but unlimited number of members. After creating that assignment, you use the link you would normally give students first to accept the assignment, providing a team name etc. then go the associated repo and give the team only read access. After that send out link for student to use.

this is how I make my course materials private and read only for students. When students join the team, and accept the assignment, they get invited to the org.

[joeyorofino]

Very much appreciated, I'll give it a try. I just hope we also get some official guidance and fixes, seems to be affecting a whole bunch of us.

[NuttKatyISD]

Got this back from a support ticket. Nothing all that helpful, but at least it sounds like they're aware.

Thank you for reaching out and apologies for the difficulty.

This issue and the details you provided have been reported to our team. We do not currently have a timeline for a fix release.

At this time, you are welcome to continue using the workaround, manually deleting the invitation for each repo and then adding each student with the same access.

Alternatively, using the CLI might help automate this process.

We appreciate your understanding. Please let us know if you have any questions or if we may assist you with anything else.
Cheers,
Maya

[suhasdara]

Got the same exact response

[eric-vader]

I have added my students into the repo and so far hasn't gotten any requests to fix link. Seems to work

[swnesbitt]

to clarify, did you have to add them to your github organization?

[eric-vader]

Yea sorry I meant added to the Organization! I added them directly into the Org, it should be possible to send out invite to a project repo of 1.

I have added to Org and so far I only hear of 1 case of the cannot use invite - but this student is also having problems with the Org invite.

[SumitWagdare]

Logging out and back in
Accepting the organization invite
Checking assignment status in Classroom
Trying a different browser/session
That way, 90% of these issues can be self-solved by students before they reach you.

[swnesbitt]

Is it possible to fix this without adding all of the students to the github org?

[tbartens]

I have I added all my students to my organization, but no invitations to join were sent to the students. I manually connected each student to a GitHub userid. Even though my organization shows that I have 66 students all in my roster, I still have the problem that GitHub treats these 66 students as "outside collaborators".  About 10-15% of my students get a "Pending Invitation" status even though no invitations were sent, and therefore cannot access their repositories.

I'm guessing that the single member teams assignment or creating an assignment with a single team of all students (mentioned in previous posts) forces invitations to get sent to the students so they are truly "members" of the organization, which fixes the problem?

So even with adding all the students to the github org does not completely solve the problem.

[nikmomo]

I received a response from GitHub support, saying, "This issue has been reported to our team. We do not currently have a timeline for a fix release."

I've developed a service that resolves this issue efficiently by sending a new invitation. It can be deployed on a server for responsive operation.
https://github.com/nikmomo/GHClassroom.AccessFix