Good day, dear community members.
I ask for your help. Who can explain to me, step by step, all the steps for installing SourceTree and configuring it for use with GitLab? At the same time, GitLab is on a “dedicated server”.
Please do not mock answers with links to articles in the instructions section, I have already read them all and they did not help me, they are all broken just like SourceTree itself.
I have been fond of game development for a long time and always dreamed of working in it, and now I get my first vacancy in game development, I start work on Monday and before Monday I have to prepare all the tools, this morning in three hours I installed and configured more than a dozen necessary for my work of programs and utilities, professional and no less complex than SourceTree, while I have known half of them for a long time, I have never worked with half, but I did not have any problems with any, and now it came to SourceTree, the first time I tried to install the built-in git at the installation stage, errors popped up saying that the file could not be copied because it was used by another program, after searching a little, I just added SourceTree and all related folders to the antivirus exceptions, and turned it off during the installation it, and ran the installation as an administrator and this problem was gone. But then the following arose, described here many times over the course of a year by different users, and I have the same problem:
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Sourcetree-questions/Remote-repository-no-longer-accessible/qaq-p/1892481?tempId=eyJvaWRjX2NvbnNlbnRfbGFuZ3VhZ2VfdmVyc2lvbiI6IjIuMCIsIm9pZGNfY29uc2VudF9ncmFudGVkX2F0IjoxNjQ1MjA4MTc3MjY0fQ%3D%3D#U1949459
From which I conclude that if such a significant problem is not fixed for more than a year, then the tool is abandoned, the outdated instructions also speak about this, even here on the official website. In general, it’s a strange thing, I rarely see this, but there is no adequate and up-to-date information on such a popular tool on the Internet and even on YouTube, all text articles about installation and configuration are copied from three or four fairly old five-year-old instructions describing the already outdated state of the interface and functionality tool. All videos on YouTube are either “water” (not informative) or do not exhaustively cover the issue, since they do not show the whole process from beginning to end, but look like a piece taken out of context. As a result, after 3 hours I installed everything I needed, I took up SourceTree and it's been 15 hours since I started SourceTree, but there is still no result. And it would seem that you could just take and use another git GUI , but despite the fact that it is abandoned, it still remains perhaps if not the best then almost the best of the free options, judging by the video, I obviously see that its functionality (if it turned out to make it work) undoubtedly increases productivity both in comparison with other GUIs for git, and in comparison with the console version, and even more so. It would seem that you can take and use a paid tool, with which there will be no such problems, but here's the thing, I'm a trainee, and so far I can't afford to buy all the desired tools. Yes, and my colleagues use it with success, but the fact is that I am the only person in the whole team who works in the Windows OS, all the rest on MAC or Linux, so they can’t really tell me what the problem is ... Well, again, taking into account I asked one colleague that I was an intern - he said that he couldn’t tell how it was under Windows, but I wouldn’t really want to work with the console version either and I don’t want to strain with my noob problem, but everything needs to be prepared before Monday.
And so, I install SourceTree, go through all the installation steps, and I don’t understand why I need to enter a bitbucket account at the beginning of the installation if I don’t plan to work with the repository on bitbucket? Then, having gone through the installation steps already without any errors, I get into the program window, and a cross in a red circle is displayed on my avatar, as in that error from the link above, and this leads to the fact that my data is deleted from the program after exiting, and next time when I start the program, I again see the installation steps and again I have to enter my bitbucket account, as I imagine this is not at all user friendly, and this is simply an inadequate program device. In all professional and even simple programs, when starting the program, even if something else needs to be configured, what we usually see: an empty program window until we open a file or project, or a welcome window with a suggestion to open a file or project, which is most often possible disable in the settings so that it is customary to see an empty program window and the program menu and everything, occasionally in fairly old or complex programs, if the program is not yet configured, we can see the setup wizard, which is easy to close and does not block the main functionality of the program and allows you to configure everything as usual through the settings menu. And here, every time I start the program, I see an inadequate program installation window by launching an already installed program from a shortcut on the desktop. As I understand it, if I can set it up in one go so that everything works, then the installation process will no longer be displayed at startup. But no matter what I tried to do, I tried to set it up for my bitbucket account first, and created a test repository on bitbucket, and created an ssh key, and inserted it where necessary, and tried all possible options in the settings - the error does not disappear and with each A new input starts the installation process of the already installed program. And now I have a login and a password from a private / dedicated gitlab server. (It's like there is a bitbucket and there is a bitbucket server, on gitlab, as I understand it, the same thing, that is, the domain of our gitlab server is not on gitlab.com , but all emails and notifications, etc. They all come with a mention of gitlab, and the whole interface of the site is like that of gitlab , and colleagues talk about it - gitlab, and accordingly the login and password given to me are registered to my email for work, they are not suitable for gitlab.com login, but only on our server.)
I can log in through a browser, I have access to the repository, I uploaded the ssh key there and generated Personal access tokens, and it's just not so difficult to guess in 2022 where to enter the login and password 
But no matter how I tried, taking into account the fact that we have our own dedicated server, to which I remind you: half of my colleagues connect via SourceTree, but they have a Mac, and there are no problems that I have on the Win version of the client. And what I just didn’t try, there in the options for connecting to gitlab, there are three different “hosting services” related to gitlab, the first in the name of which is simply “gitlab” without additional letters, and with a fixed URL gitlab.com in the line “Host URL” - obviously for connecting to the standard gitlab.com server, the other two options are similar to what I need ... And that's what I tried to do, and the domain of our server indicated, and a link to the repository, both via HTTPS and SSH, and with a personal token and with ssh key, and each time it says that authentication failed. But I can log in through the site, and my colleagues somehow log in through SourceTree, although from a Mac, which means it’s possible, but how? If I have already gone through all the possible settings and spent 15 hours on it, and now I have spent an hour writing this message ...
I'm not a git expert, this was my first time with git, before I always did everything alone and there was no need to master git, but in general for most git specialists this is not something super important, many skills are much more difficult and develop over the years, but Now the circumstances are such that I cannot devote as much time as I like to understanding on my own why such a fairly simple tool is so difficult to make work. Just due to the fact that I have never worked with it and want to start with the GUI right away, and at the same time I am limited in time, I cannot understand what is the reason that SourceTree does not work? I don't know how it was when it worked. It should be. To understand where is my mistake and where is the program error.
I almost forgot to add, after each reinstall of sourcetree, I cleared all its directories in the appdata.
Oh, and the last addition: I think everyone who reads it understands that to give their data (login and password, and even tell the hosting address) in order to help me, I can’t, since the repository is not public, but private. But if there is someone who wants to help, from those who know how it should work on Windows, under all the above conditions (SourceTree + gitlab server), then I can at least replace my real login and passwords with fictitious ones for clarity, try to explain the sequence of my actions or perform your recommended course of action.
