Stale contributor shown in repository homepage sidebar

[nursena-pc]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Bug description

The Contributors widget on my repository homepage incorrectly shows
two contributors, including an old account named "Nursena Uzar".

Repository:
https://github.com/nursena-pc/payflow

The repository currently has only one valid contributor:
nursena-pc

Verification

• git shortlog -sne --all shows only:
  Nursena Duyku <107357306+nursena-pc@users.noreply.github.com>

• There are no Co-authored-by trailers.

• The Contributors API returns only nursena-pc.

• The Contributor Statistics API returns HTTP 200 and only:
  nursena-pc, total: 19.

• The old contributor does not exist in the reachable Git history.

Expected behavior

The repository homepage Contributors widget should display only
nursena-pc.

Actual behavior

The widget still shows two contributors, including "Nursena Uzar".

Could GitHub please refresh or rebuild the cached contributor data for
this repository?

PS C:\Users\nursena\IdeaProjects\payflow> ($response.Content | ConvertFrom-Json) |

Select-Object `
    @{Name="login"; Expression={$_.author.login}},
    total

login total

---

nursena-pc 19

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[xusnitdinov]

You've basically already done the debugging that proves this is a caching issue and not bad Git data: git shortlog, the Contributors API, and the Contributor Statistics API all agree on just nursena-pc. Nice job being that thorough, it makes the diagnosis easy.

The Contributors widget on the repo homepage is rendered from a separately cached/precomputed dataset, not live from the same endpoint as the Contributors API. That cache can go stale and hold onto an account that was associated with an early commit (often via an email that was later re-attributed or an account that got renamed). Since your reachable history and both APIs are clean, the underlying data is fine, it's just the cached sidebar that's lagging.

Two things worth trying:

1. Push a new commit (even a trivial one). A fresh push sometimes triggers a rebuild of that cached contributor list and the phantom entry drops off.
2. If it persists after that, this is one only GitHub Staff can force-refresh. Open a ticket at https://support.github.com/, link this discussion, and mention that the Contributors API and Contributor Statistics API already return only nursena-pc but the homepage widget still shows a stale entry. That framing points them straight at the cache.

Community discussions can't clear that cache unfortunately, so support is the reliable path if the new-commit trick doesn't do it.

[nursena-pc]

Thank you for the clarification.

Since the repository is actively maintained, I will wait for the next
legitimate push to the default branch rather than creating an artificial
commit solely to refresh the cache.

If the stale contributor remains after that push, I will update this
discussion with the new default-branch commit SHA and try to contact
GitHub Support, referencing this discussion and the API verification
results.