Contributors list shows 2 accounts with no commits after force push

[PrograNinoGit]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

Body

Hi,

the Contributors section of my repository PrograNinoGit/adirondack-site shows 3 contributors, but I am the only one who has ever committed to the current history.

What I checked:

• git shortlog -sne --all in a fresh clone lists only one author (me, 14 commits).
• git log --all --format="%B" | Select-String "Co-authored-by" returns nothing.
• Opening the commits page filtered by one of the extra accounts (/commits?author=<username>) on the main branch shows "No commits history".

How this happened:
I used a force push at some point, and after that the two additional accounts appeared in the Contributors list. They have no commits, no co-authored-by trailers and no pull requests in the repository.

Question:
Is the Contributors list cached and can it be refreshed or recalculated? Is there anything I can do on my side (other than deleting and recreating the repository) to remove the stale entries?

I already contacted GitHub Support, but only got an automated reply pointing to the community resources.

Thanks for any help!

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[mohittguptaa]

Yes, the Contributors list is cached. A force push doesn't remove the old commits from GitHub's copy of the repo straight away, so the list can keep showing their authors until the repo is garbage-collected and recalculated.

Things you can do yourself, in order:

1. Check whether anything still points at the old commits. Your git shortlog --all only sees refs you fetched. GitHub keeps more:

   git ls-remote origin

   Look for other branches or tags, and for refs/pull/*. PR refs keep old commits alive. If an old branch or tag still exists on GitHub, delete it (git push origin --delete <name>).
2. Push a fresh commit to the default branch. The sidebar list is recalculated after a push to the default branch, so an unrelated small commit often clears stale entries within a few hours.
3. If the two accounts are still listed after 24h: only GitHub can garbage-collect unreachable commits. Reply to your support ticket (replying reopens it) and ask specifically to "run garbage collection and recalculate the contributors list after a force push", the same request as in GitHub's removing sensitive data guide. Include the repo name and the two usernames. Specific wording like this gets past the automated reply.

Deleting and recreating the repo also works, but you'd lose stars, issues and the link history, so I'd try 1–3 first.

[PrograNinoGit]

Hey,

thx a lot for the reply i have done steps 1 and 2 alrdy a few days ago i will send another ticktet.

👍

[queenofcorgis]

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