What does this mean?

[tcowan]

Hi everyone,

[NirukshaSandeepa]

In the context of the your image, it appears the instructor is trying to sync student code. The error indicates that GitHub Classroom was unable to open 17 pull requests, which are used to synchronize changes made to code.

There are two possible explanations for your error message.

• The pull requests have already been successfully created. This means that the students’ code has already been synchronized to their repositories.
• There is a problem with GitHub Classroom and the pull requests could not be created.

The instructor can try the following troubleshooting steps.

• Refresh the page.
• Try syncing the assignments again.
• Contact GitHub support for further assistance.

[RyanHecht]

Hi @tcowan,

We've looked into your assignment in our backend -- it looks like GitHub won't let us open pull requests from your starter code to the student repositories because it fails internal checks:

• Both the base and head must be branches that exist
• there must be commits between them, and they must have a common ancestor

Without having access to the starter code repository and a student assignment repository, I can't debug any further. Check the repositories to ensure that the above two points are true.

This is an error handling flaw on our part; we should be more verbose about why it failed!

[tcowan]

I don't quite understand your answer. I have not changed the template code in quite some time. I just noticed that when I specify a template repo, Github Classroom forks it into the classroom organization. I am trying to resolve this error:

There was an error accepting the assignment. GitHub repository could not be created. The visibility of the starter code is out of sync with Classroom. Your instructor may need to re-create the assignment or change the visibility of the starter code repository.. Try and (update) the assignment. If this problem persists, please have the Classroom admin contact support.

When I clicked the update link, I received the earlier error message.

I am desperate. Students can no longer clone their assignment repos. The visibility of both the original and forked template repos are Public. If I recreate the assignment, 17 existing student repos will be deleted.