Homebrew-core: Cannot `brew update`

[Jamesking56]

• [x] Ran brew update and retried your prior step?
• [x] Ran brew doctor, fixed as many issues as possible and retried your prior step?
• [x] Confirmed this is problem with specific formulae and not Homebrew/brew? If it's a general Homebrew/brew problem please file this issue at https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/issues/new

When I run brew update it reads back:

fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': terminal prompts disabled Error: Fetching /usr/local/Library/Taps/flutter/homebrew-flutter failed!

This also occurs when running cd "$(brew --repo)" && git fetch && git reset --hard origin/master && brew update

[ilovezfs]

Sounds like a messed up ~/.gitconfig or ~/.ssh/config

[Jamesking56]

@ilovezfs is there any way I can syntax check them?

[ilovezfs]

@Jamesking56 well I'd start out with the sledgehammer.

mv ~/.gitconfig ~/gitconfig
mv ~/.ssh/config ~/sshconfig

and try again

[Jamesking56]

@ilovezfs I ran those two commands and now got this (same error but more output?):

fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com': terminal prompts disabled Error: Fetching /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/flutter/homebrew-flutter failed! Updated 1 tap (homebrew/core). ==> Updated Formulae go godep govendor

[ilovezfs]

try brew untap flutter/flutter and then try again.

[Jamesking56]

@ilovezfs Yes! Now I get:

Already up-to-date. when running brew update

[ilovezfs]

Great. Looks like the cause is that they deleted the tap.

https://github.com/flutter/homebrew-flutter no longer exists

[Jamesking56]

Thanks for the help. Closing 👍

[JoeCostanzo]

@ilovezfs 's comment is prescient because you'd be AMAZED how frequently it's completely OMITTED to just show an explicit error message.

"Fetching x failed" is NOT the same as saying "x no longer exists.".. if the error message would just say that, (or even better, automatically clean up the out-of-date dependency), we could get a lot further without searching around aimlessly for why something isn't updating.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@JoeCostanzo Please watch your tone. Homebrew is made by volunteers in our spare time and available as-is; bugs and all. If you'd like to submit a pull request to improve that behaviour: please go ahead and I'll review it.

[JoeCostanzo]

@MikeMcQuaid my apologies.. I just was a little frustrated, because in my case brew update was failing looking for ...Taps/homebrew/homebrew-science.

Whether that formulæ even exists anymore, the above comment helped me out because I had been searching for eons as to why brew wouldn't just update, but instead was giving this ambiguous error. Upon seeing @ilovezfs 's message, it occurred that I can just uninstall that formulæ altogether and not have to worry about any errors, because I don't recall why I needed it to begin with, and I wasn't using it.

Maybe one day I'll have time to look into doing a PR like that. Thanks.

[MikeMcQuaid]

@JoeCostanzo Thanks, we appreciate the apology ❤️