How to Clone private repo in VS Code with account passwords no longer supported

[Chris Gage]

I'm attempting to clone a private repo in VS code. I am logged into Bitbucket. When I click on Clone Repository. It asks my for the URL which I enter. After selecting the location it asks me for my password. I then get the error:

Failed to authenticate to git remote:
remote: Bitbucket Cloud recently stopped supporting account passwords for Git authentication.
remote: See our community post for more details: https://atlassian.community/t5/x/x/ba-p/1948231
remote: App passwords are recommended for most use cases and can be created in your Personal settings:
remote: https://bitbucket.org/account/settings/app-passwords/
fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://bitbucket.org/XXXXXXXXXXXXX
 
I have setup an App password, but I don't see the opportuntiy anywhere to enter this when trying to clone.

What do I need to do?

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi Chris,

The app password should be used in the place of a password. The place to enter it is when you get a prompt to enter your password during a clone.

If you no longer get prompted to enter a password when you try to clone, it is possible that a credential manager is used in your machine that has saved the password you used the first time.

You can check if a credential helper is used a) for all users in your system and b) only for your user by running the commands:

git config --system credential.helper
git config --global credential.helper

If a credential helper is used and it has saved credentials for bitbucket.org, you will need to clear them in order to get prompted for a password the next time you clone.

Another option is to use SSH, as Aron suggested. When using SSH, authentication is done with the SSH keys instead of a username and app password. However, if you prefer HTTPS, the app password should be used in the place of a password when you clone/pull/push.

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

I am not familiar with VS code, but it general I think connecting to Bitbucket over SSH would be a tool-independent way to work with your repositories.

It requires some efforts, but those should only be done once, then you can forget about it and it is secure.