Git commands return error code 503
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Symptoms
When pulling from, pushing or cloning to Bitbucket Server, it responds with the error code 503.
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$ git clone url directory
Cloning into 'directory'...
error: The requested URL returned error: 503 while accessing url
fatal: HTTP request failed
Cause
This may be caused by one of two things:
If you have a proxy set up in front of Bitbucket Server, it may be returning the 503 due to Bitbucket Server being down.
If you don't have a proxy and you are using Bitbucket Server 1.0.0, it is likely that you are hitting internal Bitbucket Server resource limits.
In Bitbucket Server 1.0.1 and above, you will get an explicit error message in the git command output if you hit the resource limits.
Resolution
When you visit Bitbucket Server in your browser, it will add a banner if it is under extreme load (confirming cause #2 above). You will have to wait for the load to decrease - try again occasionally.
If you are hitting resource limits, you can configure those limits in Bitbucket Server, as documented in Scaling Bitbucket Data Center.
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