[git] GitHub authentication failing over https, returning wrong email address

Initiating a push or any other action with GitHub from the command line (over https, not ssh) that calls for the username and password not only fails but, when it does, it returns

Username for 'https://github.com': username
Password for 'https://[email protected]': 
remote: Invalid username or password.
fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://github.com/username/repository.git/'

I do not have an @github.com address. The password and username are correct.

I know I could switch to SSH and use keys but that doesn't answer why the authentication is failing over https.

On Windows, you may be silently blocked by your Antivirus or Windows firewall. Temporarily turn off those services and push/pull from remote origin.

It may happen in Windows if you stored a different credentials before. Go to Credential Manager and delete stored github credentials

Just incase this helps anyone else also, I was signed into the mac app, command line working fine, but because I then turned on 2FA, my commands were returning the error. I had to sign out of the app, then I could use my Personal access token in my commands as per ele's answer here.

Hopefully that helps someone!

• Go to Credential Manager => Windows Manager
• Delete everything related to tfs

• Now click on Add a generic credential and provide the following values

  (1) Internet or network adress: git:https://tfs.donamain name (2) username: your username (3) password: your password

  this should fix it

[Mac only]

If you need to delete your authentication, use

git credential-osxkeychain erase
host=github.com
protocol=https

on Mac.

See https://help.github.com/articles/updating-credentials-from-the-osx-keychain/

Same thing happened with me, when i have enabled 2-way authentication for github. Things i did to resolve:

• Get you personal access token. This you have to check and generate if not available already. Link for this: https://github.com/settings/tokens
• Go to your local and delete folder and re-clone branch from github.
• Now try the command you were trying earlier i.e: git pull origin master
• Enter username and In password paste the token generated and also don't forget to save that token somewhere, so you can re-use if required.

Doing this will solve your issue.

I do not have an @github.com address

You don't have to: the @ is the separator between the username:password and the domain.
It is not an email address.

A full GitHub https url would be:

https://username:[email protected]/username/reponame.git

Without the password (which would then be asked on the command line), that would gave:

https://[email protected]/username/reponame.git

But again, [email protected] isn't an email address, just the first part of the credentials.

Make sure the case of your username and reponame is correct: it is case sensitive.

Note that you can store and encrypt your credentials in a .netrc.gpg (or _netrc.gpg on Windows) if you don't want to put said credentials in clear in the url.
See "Is there a way to skip password typing when using https://github".