Stale contributor in repo sidebar after history rewrite (>24h)

[GabriPaganelli]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Hello eveeryone,

I rewrote history on 7 of my repositories (git filter-branch + force-push) to strip Co-Authored-By: trailer lines. The trailers are gone from every commit, and Insights → Contributors shows the correct list. But the Contributors section on each repo's main page still lists a contributor that no longer exists in the history — more than 24 hours (for most, several days) after the force-push.

I opened Support ticket #4721820; it was closed as out-of-scope for my plan and I was directed here. Could a staff member trigger a contributor-stats cache refresh for these repos?

https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/GabriPaganelli.github.io
https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/italian-energy-market
https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/mouse-lfp-transformer
https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/pantheon-network-analysis
https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/simpsons-familyguy-nlp
https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/crop-soil-analysis
https://github.com/GabriPaganelli/stat-data-camp

Thanks.

[github-actions[bot]]

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[whoismehfooz]

Hi,

This may be caused by cached contributor statistics. The repository's Insights → Contributors page may update separately from the contributor list shown on the main repository page.

You can try pushing a new commit and waiting for the statistics to refresh. If the old contributor still appears after some time, you can report it to GitHub Support with the repository URL and explain that the history has already been rewritten.

The community cannot manually refresh contributor statistics, so there may not be an immediate fix available here.

Hope this helps!

[Sahil002620Q]

The Problem :
GitHub handles the repository overview sidebar differently from the Insights → Contributors tab. While your force-push successfully updated the Git commit history and the underlying statistics graph, GitHub’s front-end edge cache for the sidebar has not invalidated the old contributor metadata. Because stale cache purge workers don't automatically trigger solely on a force-push, the removed contributor remains visible on the main page.
The Solution :
You can force GitHub’s cache worker to re-index the repository and update the sidebar immediately using either of these two methods:

1. Trigger a New Head Commit: Make a minor, harmless change directly on the default branch (such as adding a trailing newline or updating a typo in your README.md), commit it, and push normally. A standard push event on the default branch forces GitHub's post-receive hooks to rebuild the repository's metadata cache.
2. Toggle Repository Visibility: Navigate to Settings → General → Danger Zone, change the repository visibility from Public to Private, and then immediately toggle it back to Public. This resets all cached public-facing counters, assets, and sidebar contributor cards instantly.

[StartYR]

I'm experiencing the same issue with:

https://github.com/StartYR/CalculatorX

I rewrote the repository history so that the affected commits are now authored by my GitHub-linked identity.

I have verified that:

• Insights → Contributors only shows my account.
• GET /repos/StartYR/CalculatorX/contributors only returns StartYR.
• The issue has persisted for more than two weeks.
• My GitHub Support ticket (#4788977) was closed and I was directed to GitHub Community.

I also performed an additional A/B test:

1. I made a fresh bare clone of the affected repository directly from GitHub.
2. I created a brand-new GitHub repository.
3. I mirror-pushed the complete repository, including the same Git history and refs, to the new repository.
4. The new repository immediately shows only one contributor (StartYR) on the repository homepage.

So the exact same Git history produces different contributor lists depending on the repository.

This strongly suggests that the original repository has stale repository-specific contributor metadata/cache.

Could someone from GitHub please trigger a refresh/reindex of the contributor data for the original repository?

[StartYR]

I found a workaround that fixed the stale contributor entry without changing repository visibility.

Steps:

1. Create a temporary branch from the current default branch.
2. Change the repository's default branch from main to the temporary branch.
3. Change the default branch back to main.
4. Delete the temporary branch.

Immediately after switching the default branch back, the repository homepage contributor list was refreshed and the stale github-actions[bot] entry disappeared.

In my case, the Git history, Insights → Contributors, and the REST contributors API had already been correct for more than two weeks. Only the repository homepage sidebar was stale.

Changing the default branch appears to trigger a refresh/reindex of the repository homepage contributor metadata.

[queenofcorgis]

Thank you for reporting this bug. We've been logging these posts and are currently investigating solutions. We will share updates as soon as work begins and we have a better sense of when it will ship.

In the meantime, we did publish a troubleshooting guide for folks who may have missing contributions if you haven't taken the steps outlined in this doc, I recommend doing those first.

We appreciate the patience!

[SW-Wanted]

This also happened to me. I transferred my repository to another account and then moved it back to my account, and the stale contributors disappear.

[Himanshu-khade]

Hello GitHub Community,

My repository: https://github.com/Himanshu-khade/retail-sales-analysis

I rewrote the history of the main branch and force-pushed it more than 48 hours ago.

The filtered commit history for shalita0052 shows “No commits history,” and the Insights → Contributors page shows only my account. However, the repository homepage still lists shalita0052 in the Contributors section.

Could a moderator please check whether the homepage contributor data is stale and refresh it if necessary?

Thank you.

[StartYR]

Hi! I ran into the same issue and managed to fix it. Here's what worked for me:

1. Create a temporary branch from main.
2. Set the temporary branch as the default branch in the repository settings.
3. Wait a few minutes, then switch the default branch back to main.
4. Delete the temporary branch.

This successfully removed the stale contributors from my repository's sidebar. Give it a try!