Old contributor still appears in repository Contributors section

[Ashri421]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

Body

Hello,

I own this repository:

https://github.com/Ashri421/AI-Mock-Interview

The repository's main page still shows an old contributor:

Bijaykund8 (Bijay kund)

I rewrote the repository history more than one month ago.

I verified the current remote main branch with Git, and the current history contains only my commits:

Ashritha"Personal info edited by staff"

The Insights → Contributors page now shows only my account, Ashri421.

However, the main repository page still shows "Contributors 2" and lists Bijaykund8.

How can I get this stale contributor entry removed or refreshed?

Thank you.

[azunox]

Hi @Ashri421 ,

This is a fairly common issue. GitHub aggressively caches the contributor count and list on the main repository page to improve performance. When you rewrite history and force-push, this specific cache sometimes gets "stuck," even though the Insights → Contributors page updates correctly.

Here are a few steps you can take to get it resolved:

1. Check for lingering references
   Double-check that the old contributor's commits aren't still hiding in other branches or tags.
   The main page contributor list pulls from all active branches, not just main. You can verify this locally by running:

git log --all --author="Bijaykund8"

If this command returns any commits, you will need to clean those specific branches or tags as well.

2. Force a cache refresh
   Sometimes, pushing a new commit can trigger GitHub's system to recalculate the repository statistics.
   You can try pushing an empty commit to your main branch:

git commit --allow-empty -m "Trigger GitHub cache refresh"
git push origin main

3. Contact GitHub Support
   Since you mentioned you rewrote the history over a month ago, the cache is likely permanently stuck. If the steps above don't work, your best option is to reach out to GitHub Support. Simply open a ticket, share the link to your repository, and ask them to manually rebuild the contributor cache for your repo. They handle this specific request frequently and can fix it on their end very quickly.

[Arjon22]

hello. i have the same issue i did everything i could. all initialization and all log is only mine. even tried new repo PR .Still the old contributor is here. i dont know how to fix. the problem was maybe old contributor account was logged in my device then i cleared it . even clearing everything the contributor isnt going away.

[amiriguesss]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

Body

Hello,

I own this repository:

https://github.com/Ashri421/AI-Mock-Interview

The repository's main page still shows an old contributor:

Bijaykund8 (Bijay kund)

I rewrote the repository history more than one month ago.

I verified the current remote main branch with Git, and the current history contains only my commits:

Ashritha ashrithalakkam@gmail.com

The Insights → Contributors page now shows only my account, Ashri421.

However, the main repository page still shows "Contributors 2" and lists Bijaykund8.

How can I get this stale contributor entry removed or refreshed?

Thank you.

This is a known annoyance, and it's almost always GitHub's cached contributor data rather than something you did wrong with the rewrite.
The sidebar on the repo page ("Contributors 2") is served from a cached copy of the contributors data, and it does not get invalidated when you force-push a rewritten history. The Insights → Contributors page runs a fresher query, which is exactly why the two disagree for you. Plenty of people have seen the sidebar keep a ghost contributor for weeks or months after a clean rewrite, so you're not missing an obvious step.
Before you assume it's just cache, though, two things are worth checking because they'll legitimately keep him listed:

1. Any ref that still points at the old commits. git ls-remote https://github.com/Ashri421/AI-Mock-Interview and look for leftover branches or tags from before the rewrite. As long as a branch or tag keeps those commits reachable, GitHub can still count them. Also check GitHub's Branches page for old branch names you forgot about (backup branches are the usual culprit).
2. Commit trailers in the new history, specifically Co-authored-by: lines. If any rewritten commit message kept a Co-authored-by: Bijay ... <...> trailer, he'll be credited again no matter what the graph says. A quick git log --format='%an <%ae>%n%cn <%ce>' | sort -u on the default branch will also confirm no old author/committer identities slipped through in the new commits.
   If all of that is clean, then it's the cache, and there's no user-facing button to purge it. The reliable fix is to open a ticket at support.github.com: give them the repo URL, tell them you rewrote history and force-pushed the default branch on a specific date, and ask them to refresh/purge the cached contributors information for the repository. That's the one thing that consistently clears it. Pushing a new commit to the default branch sometimes triggers a recompute within a day, so it's worth doing anyway, but on its own it doesn't always help.
   You can also sanity-check the underlying data with curl -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" https://api.github.com/repos/Ashri421/AI-Mock-Interview/contributors — if that returns only your account, it's pure UI cache and Support will fix it quickly.

[sunmeat]

I think the most important clue here is that the two GitHub views disagree.

If Insights → Contributors already shows only your account, while the repository homepage still shows the old contributor, that strongly suggests the underlying contributor data has been updated but the repository homepage is still displaying stale data.

I would avoid rewriting the history again or making unnecessary changes to the repository just to try to remove the old entry. First, make sure there are no remaining branches, tags, or Co-authored-by trailers that could legitimately reference the old contributor.

If those checks are clean, this looks like something GitHub needs to refresh on their side. Since the history was rewritten more than a month ago, contacting GitHub Support with the repository URL and pointing out the discrepancy between the homepage and Insights → Contributors should give them a very clear starting point.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the fact that the old account may have been logged in on your computer. GitHub's contributor attribution is based on repository/commit data, not on which GitHub account happened to be signed in on a particular device.

Hopefully this is just a stale piece of repository metadata and can be cleared without touching the Git history again. 👍