# Fatal: could not read Username for 'https://github.com'

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/fatal-could-not-read-username-for-https-github-com/411498
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [September 2, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fatal-could-not-read-username-for-https-github-com/411498 "2026-09-02T16:55:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 9

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![lunikon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/858c86/32.png) [@lunikon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lunikon)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2026, 6:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fatal-could-not-read-username-for-https-github-com/411498/9 "2026-09-03T06:34:16Z")

</div>

I have two self-hosted Discourse instances that are down at the moment. In the logs, I see lines like this:

```plaintext
I, [2026-09-03T06:02:41.640393 #80] INFO -- : reaped unknown subprocess #<Process::Status: pid 3079826 exit 128>
I, [2026-09-03T06:03:10.006495 #80] INFO -- : reaped unknown subprocess #<Process::Status: pid 3079864 exit 128>
I, [2026-09-03T06:03:10.394732 #80] INFO -- : reaped unknown subprocess #<Process::Status: pid 3079871 exit 128>
E, [2026-09-03T06:03:10.518338 #722] ERROR -- : worker=0 gen=0 pid=722 timed out, exiting
I, [2026-09-03T06:03:10.530245 #722] INFO -- : worker=0 gen=0 pid=722 exiting

```

The 128 exit code looks suspiciously like Git.

Could this be related? And if so, why would a failed GitHub lookup cause an instance to go down?

---

_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fatal-could-not-read-username-for-https-github-com/411498)._