Stale contributor still displayed after history rewrite and force-push

[abdolhoseini]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Hello GitHub Community,

Two of my public repositories continue to display the account elahehshadkam in their Contributors sections, even though the current default-branch histories contain no commits attributed to that account:

1. https://github.com/abdolhoseini/ai-voice-of-customer-analyzer
2. https://github.com/abdolhoseini/course-registration-email-automation

I corrected the Git author information, rewrote both repository histories, and force-pushed the corrected histories more than 48 hours ago. I verified that the current histories contain no author, committer, or Co-authored-by references associated with elahehshadkam.

For example, the filtered commit page for the first repository displays “No commits history”:

https://github.com/abdolhoseini/ai-voice-of-customer-analyzer/commits/main/?author=elahehshadkam

However, the repository sidebar still lists elahehshadkam under Contributors and displays “Committed to this repository in the past week.”

I attempted to contact GitHub Support, but the ticket was automatically closed because technical support is not included with my current plan, and I was directed to Community Discussions.

Is this stale contributor data that requires an internal statistics/cache refresh? If so, could a GitHub staff member or moderator please advise how the contributor statistics for these repositories can be rebuilt?

Repository owner: abdolhoseini
Incorrectly displayed contributor: elahehshadkam
Default branch: main

Thank you.

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[ktravers]

👋 Hello @abdolhoseini, I've refreshed the list, so it should be up to date now. In the future, if you run into this problem again, please contact GitHub support.

From our docs:

After force-pushing, rewriting history, or deleting commits, repository contributor displays and statistics can take about 24 hours to refresh.

If you're a repository owner and contributor data is still incorrect after waiting about 24 hours, contact GitHub Support. For more information about creating a support ticket, see Creating a support ticket.

[1-gokul]

Hi, I'm experiencing the same issue with my repository:

https://github.com/1-gokul/CodeSync

I rewrote the repository history and force-pushed it more than 72 hours ago. The current main history contains only my commits, but vedantckadam is still shown in the Contributors section:

https://github.com/1-gokul/CodeSync/graphs/contributors

I contacted GitHub Support twice about this (#4725031 and #4729138), but both tickets were automatically closed within minutes with a self-service response.

Since this appears to be the same stale contributor-data issue described here, could you please refresh the contributor list for my repository as you did for this case?

Thank you!

[MedChronicles]

I've confirmed this isn't a matter of leftover commits somewhere I missed — I ran git log --all --author=elahehshadkam on fresh clones of both repositories and got no results across any branch or tag, not just main. I also double-checked git ls-remote on both repos to make sure there are no stray refs still pointing at the old history.
Given that:
The filtered view (?author=elahehshadkam) correctly shows no commits
A full --all branch/tag search locally shows no commits
The history was rewritten and force-pushed more than 48 hours ago
...I'm fairly confident this isn't a propagation delay or a ref I've overlooked. It looks like the Contributors sidebar and the "committed in the past week" indicator are being served from a separate statistics cache that didn't get invalidated when the history was rewritten via force-push. That would explain why the live commit query is accurate but the sidebar isn't — they appear to be two different data sources under the hood.
Since GitHub Support directed me here because technical support isn't included in my plan, I'm hoping a staff member or moderator can help with one of the following:
Confirm whether contributor stats are expected to auto-refresh after a force-push, or whether this requires a manual rebuild on GitHub's end.
If a manual rebuild is needed, trigger that for these two repositories:
abdolhoseini/ai-voice-of-customer-analyzer
abdolhoseini/course-registration-email-automation
In the meantime, I'll try a couple of workarounds people have mentioned for stale contributor stats (toggling repo visibility, renaming the default branch and back) and report here if either one clears it — but since this seems to be a caching/indexing issue rather than something fixable from the repo settings, I'd really appreciate confirmation from GitHub staff either way.
Happy to provide any additional info (repo IDs, timestamps of the force-push, etc.) if that helps investigate.
Thanks again.

[abdolhoseini]

Hi Thank you for your help. The issue has now been resolved and the name Elaheh Shadkam is no longer displayed. Reza Abdolhoseini

…

On Fri, Sep 4, 2026 at 8:50 PM Arpit_Saharan ***@***.***> wrote: I've confirmed this isn't a matter of leftover commits somewhere I missed — I ran git log --all --author=elahehshadkam on fresh clones of both repositories and got no results across any branch or tag, not just main. I also double-checked git ls-remote on both repos to make sure there are no stray refs still pointing at the old history. Given that: The filtered view (?author=elahehshadkam) correctly shows no commits A full --all branch/tag search locally shows no commits The history was rewritten and force-pushed more than 48 hours ago ...I'm fairly confident this isn't a propagation delay or a ref I've overlooked. It looks like the Contributors sidebar and the "committed in the past week" indicator are being served from a separate statistics cache that didn't get invalidated when the history was rewritten via force-push. That would explain why the live commit query is accurate but the sidebar isn't — they appear to be two different data sources under the hood. Since GitHub Support directed me here because technical support isn't included in my plan, I'm hoping a staff member or moderator can help with one of the following: Confirm whether contributor stats are expected to auto-refresh after a force-push, or whether this requires a manual rebuild on GitHub's end. If a manual rebuild is needed, trigger that for these two repositories: abdolhoseini/ai-voice-of-customer-analyzer abdolhoseini/course-registration-email-automation In the meantime, I'll try a couple of workarounds people have mentioned for stale contributor stats (toggling repo visibility, renaming the default branch and back) and report here if either one clears it — but since this seems to be a caching/indexing issue rather than something fixable from the repo settings, I'd really appreciate confirmation from GitHub staff either way. Happy to provide any additional info (repo IDs, timestamps of the force-push, etc.) if that helps investigate. Thanks again. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#205652?email_source=notifications&email_token=CKMXQZUTZGYMGHSL3OSKDL35NMFHLA5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCOBSHE2DKMZQUZZGKYLTN5XKO3LFNZ2GS33OUVSXMZLOOSWGM33PORSXEX3DNRUWG2Y#discussioncomment-18294530>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/CKMXQZSCHFB33NUOPPSO4I35NMFHLAVCNFSNUABIKJSXA33TNF2G64TZHMZTAMJVG4ZTGNBUHNCGS43DOVZXG2LPNY5TCMBWG4YTEMJUUF3AE> . Triage notifications, keep track of coding agent tasks and review pull requests on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/ios/CKMXQZWWQMRUFQZ53Z6QPSL5NMFHLA5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCOBSHE2DKMZQUZZGKYLTN5XKO3LFNZ2GS33OUVSXMZLOOSVGM33PORSXEX3JN5ZQ> and Android <https://github.com/notifications/mobile/android/CKMXQZTB7OAL6Z33FOCVQRT5NMFHLA5CNFSNUABIM5UWIORPF5TWS5BNNB2WEL2ENFZWG5LTONUW63SDN5WW2ZLOOQXTCOBSHE2DKMZQUZZGKYLTN5XKO3LFNZ2GS33OUVSXMZLOOSXGM33PORSXEX3BNZSHE33JMQ>. Download it today! You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>