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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T05:58:38+00:00

I’m trying to clone my personal fork on github using the git+ssh protocol with

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I’m trying to clone my personal fork on github using the git+ssh protocol with TortoiseHg. It’s giving me a rather strange error. Here is the command

hg clone git+ssh://git@github.com:myusername/thefork.git

This is after I have installed the hg-git module and it works just fine to clone using the git:// syntax. But I believe it’s having trouble with the ssh. The error I’m getting is this.

importing Hg objects into Git
[Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified

I have tried adding manually the ssh command into the mercurial.ini file like this

[ui]
username = email@address.com
ssh="C:\Program Files\TortoiseHg\TortoisePlink.exe" -ssh -2 -i "C:\Source\SSHPrivateKey.ppk"

But I still get the same error. Any ideas?

Update 1

If I run the same command from the Git Bash shell it works just fine. I get this.

importing Hg objects into Git
Counting objects: 1559, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (586/586), done.
Total 1559 (delta 960), reused 1534 (delta 947)
importing Git objects into Hg
at:  0/86
updating to branch default
219 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

I’m assuming it’s because it can find ssh.exe and my key is already imported. I can add the path of ssh.exe to the windows command prompts path and then instead of the previous error I get this.

importing Hg objects into Git
Permission denied (publickey).
abort: the remote end hung up unexpectedly

It seems that it’s looking specifically for ssh.exe eventhough I have specified the alternate ssh path in mercurial.ini. But my guess here is that that configuration is only for a ssh enabled mercurial server and doesn’t apply to the hg-git plugin.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I have found a way around this but it’s pretty hackish. I noticed that ProcessMonitor was showing it looking for ssh.exe in several different paths so I copied the TortoisePlink.exe in the TortoiseHg folder and named it ssh.exe.

    copy "C:\Program Files\TortoiseHg\TortoisePlink.exe" "C:\Program Files\TortoiseHg\ssh.exe"

    With just this change it will still fail the authentication. You’ll get a pop-up box and this.

    importing Hg objects into Git
abort: the remote end hung up unexpectedly

    So you need to get a hold of pageant.exe that comes with the main PuTTy install. Start that up and add your key to it. Then run the clone command again and it should authenticate just fine.

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