Contributors graph still shows a removed author after history rewrite + force-push (all checks clean)

[ana-brihac]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Hi all,

I'm trying to remove a contributor from my repo's Contributors graph (Insights → Contributors) at: https://github.com/ana-brihac/bplustree-kv-store

The account still appears as a contributor, but I've confirmed every possible cause is clean:

Commit history: Rewrote authorship on all commits (rebase/filter-repo) and force-pushed. Verified with:
git log --all --format='%an %ae %cn %ce %s' | grep -i claude

on both local history and every branch on origin (checked via git ls-remote origin and fetching all branches) — zero matches.

Collaborators: Settings → Collaborators and teams shows 0 collaborators, "only you can contribute to this repository."
GitHub Apps: Settings → GitHub Apps shows "There aren't any GitHub Apps installed on this repository."
Pull requests: Searched is:pr in the Pull Requests tab (no state filter) — zero PRs exist, open or closed, ever.

Given all of that comes back clean, I believe this is a caching issue with the Contributors graph not reflecting the rewritten history. It's been 4 days think since the force-push.

Has anyone run into this before, or know if there's a way to force GitHub to recompute the Contributors graph? Filed a support ticket but it was auto-closed as a self-service issue since I'm on a free plan.

Thanks!

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[Totalwally]

If you've verified that the rewritten history no longer contains the old author and you've checked all branches, I wouldn't keep changing the repository history just to try to make the Contributors graph update.

The Contributors view is generated from GitHub's repository statistics, so there can be a delay between a history rewrite/force-push and what the graph displays. Since you've already waited several days, though, this sounds more like a stale statistics/indexing issue than something still present in your Git history.

One useful check would be whether the old contributor still appears when viewing the repository's current commit history, rather than only in the Contributors graph. If the commits themselves are correctly attributed but only Insights → Contributors still shows the old account, that would make the graph/indexing explanation much stronger.

Since you've already opened a Support ticket, I'd keep the repository as-is and give Support the repository URL, the approximate time of the force-push, and the fact that the old author is absent from every reachable branch. Rewriting the history again probably won't help if GitHub's contributor statistics are what haven't refreshed.

[nirav-gajera]

This is the same known caching bug I've seen reported several times recently — your diagnosis is spot on. The sidebar/homepage "Contributors" widget is backed by a separate cache from your actual git history, and it doesn't reliably recompute after a force-push/history rewrite, even though Insights → Contributors (a different system) should have updated by now.

See discussions #202123, #202032, #189812, and #202540 — identical symptom (removed author still showing, 4+ days after clean history rewrite, every other system confirms they're gone) and no user-side fix.

One thing worth trying that worked for a couple of people: toggle your default branch temporarily. Go to Settings → Branches, switch the default branch to something else (even just gh-pages or a test branch) for 30 seconds, then switch it back to main. Sometimes forcing GitHub to reprocess repo metadata kicks the cache — not guaranteed, but costs a minute to test.

If that doesn't clear it, this needs GitHub staff to manually invalidate the cached entry. Since your free-tier support ticket auto-closed, file a new one under a specific category rather than generic feedback: Repositories → Graphs and Insights → Contributors Graph. Include:

• Your exact repo link
• Confirmation that git history is clean (the grep command you ran is perfect evidence)
• The 4+ day elapsed time
• A link to one of the precedent discussions above (shows this is a known, recurring pattern, not isolated)

That routing usually gets faster attention than a general "help me" ticket, since it flags it as a known category of issue.