Git clone / pull continually freezing at "Store key in cache?"

I'm attempting to clone a repo from my BitBucket account to my Windows 10 laptop (running GitBash). I've completed all of the steps necessary to connect (set up my SSH key, verified by successfully SSHing [email protected], etc). However, whenever I attempt to clone a repo, the prompt continually hangs up after confirming that I want to cache Bitbucket's key.

User@Laptop MINGW64 /C/Repos
$ git clone [email protected]:mygbid/test.git
Cloning into 'test'...
The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You
have no guarantee that the server is the computer you
think it is.
The server's rsa2 key fingerprint is:
ssh-rsa 2048 97:8c:1b:f2:6f:14:6b:5c:3b:ec:aa:46:46:74:7c:40
If you trust this host, enter "y" to add the key to
PuTTY's cache and carry on connecting.
If you want to carry on connecting just once, without
adding the key to the cache, enter "n".
If you do not trust this host, press Return to abandon the
connection.
Store key in cache? (y/n) y

No files are cloned, and the result is an empty repo. Trying to initiate a git pull origin master from this repo also asks to cache the key, then hangs with no feedback. Despite not asking for the key to be cached when I do a test SSH, git operations always ask for the key every time before failing.

With no error messages to work with, I'm really at a loss as to what is wrong. I've tried multiple repos, including very small ones, with no success at all.

I had this problem when cloning a repo on Windows 10 too.

I got around it by using the Putty GUI to SSH to the server in question (in your case: bitbucket.org) then clicked 'Yes' when the prompt asks if you want to save the server key to the cache. Running the clone command again then worked for me!

1. Open Putty
2. Type in the Host Name (like bitbucket.org)
3. Click Open
4. Click yes in the popup to cache the host key
5. Close Putty

I managed to get it working by running plink directly, after pageant is running use the plink command directly - plink.exe -agent -v [email protected] then after this git works without hanging.

To do this from powershell open a powershell window and paste in the following:

echo y | & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GitExtensions\PuTTY\plink.exe' -ssh [email protected]
echo y | & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GitExtensions\PuTTY\plink.exe' -ssh [email protected]
echo y | & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\GitExtensions\PuTTY\plink.exe' -ssh [email protected]

or with PuTTY standalone version:

echo y | & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\plink.exe' -ssh [email protected]
echo y | & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\plink.exe' -ssh [email protected]
echo y | & 'C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\plink.exe' -ssh [email protected]

Also worth knowing is that putty stores known hosts under a registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SoftWare\SimonTatham\PuTTY\SshHostKeys

To shortcut the above you could put the following in a .reg file and run it:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\SimonTatham\PuTTY\SshHostKeys]
"rsa2@22:github.com"="0x23,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"
"rsa2@22:gist.github.com"="0x23,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"
"rsa2@22:bitbucket.org"="0x23,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"

putty-hosts.reg gist

To workaround this problem I configured GitBash to use plink with -batch option. The option disables all prompts - the plink will terminate without hanging and won't add any key fingerprint to cache.

To add -batch parameter to plink command executed by GitBash you can set a git config option:

git config --global core.sshCommand "plink -batch"

Or set GIT_SSH_COMMAND environment variable.

The output when you cloning a repo from unknown host will be similar to this:

The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You
have no guarantee that the server is the computer you
think it is.
The server's rsa2 key fingerprint is:
ssh-rsa 2048 97:8c:1b:f2:6f:14:6b:5c:3b:ec:aa:46:46:74:7c:40
Connection abandoned.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

After this message you can add a key to cache with command:

echo y | plink [email protected]

REMARK: Please check if plink is in your PATH. Alternatively use UNIX-like path in the GitBash config option, e.g.:

/c/Program\ Files/PuTTY/plink.exe -batch

Even after performing the workaround mentioned in other answers, you may encounter an error like:

> FATAL ERROR: Disconnected: No supported authentication methods available (server sent: publickey)

To solve both problems at once, change git bash to use SSH instead of PuTTY by adding the following to your ~/.profile file (C:\Users\<Username>\.profile). If you don't already have this file, then create a new file with this line.

GIT_SSH="/usr/bin/ssh.exe"

Then open a new git bash window and try your git clone or git pull again.

Note that this may require you to create an SSH key if you don't already have one. To do this, follow the instructions on the Bitbucket site.

See this SO question for related info.

In your git bash shell, check for existence of GIT_SSH:
echo $GIT<tab><tab>
If it exists and is set to putty, execute:
unset GIT_SSH
You'll probably want to put this into one of the git bash startup scripts.
This is NOT a universal solution. It worked in our particular case.

It sounds a bit silly, but after trying all of the above, I decided to reinstall Git Bash with default options and it worked.

If you use KiTTY (instead of PuTTY), it has -auto-store-sshkey argument.

So, you can set GIT_SSH_COMMAND (or git config --global core.sshCommand) to something like c:/KiTTY/klink.exe -auto-store-sshkey.

The output still contains information about new key and the question, but it doesn't wait for the answer:

The server's host key is not cached in the registry. You
have no guarantee that the server is the computer you
think it is.
The server's ssh-ed25519 key fingerprint is:
ssh-ed25519 255 2e:65:6a:c8:cf:bf:b2:8b:9a:bd:6d:9f:11:5c:12:16
If you trust this host, enter "y" to add the key to
PuTTY's cache and carry on connecting.
If you want to carry on connecting just once, without
adding the key to the cache, enter "n".
If you do not trust this host, press Return to abandon the
connection.
Store key in cache? (y/n)
Autostore key is on