HomeBrew Git update always breaks SourceTree

Question

SourceTree is a great product, but there's one thing that is really annoying. I have Git installed using HomeBrew. When I update Git (because of a brew update), the next time I start SourceTree, I get the following error:

SourceTree suddenly has no clue where my System Git is installed. This problem is probably caused by the fact that Homebrew uses symbolic links in /usr/local/bin that point to Git versions in the Cellar folder.

Now every time Git is updated (which is quite often), I have to click away a few error dialogs and go to Preferences and reselect my System Git location.

It would be great if SourceTree could be a bit smarter in handling HomeBrew Git installations.

Thank you.

johnbolliger · Answer

I figured out a manual but hopefully permanent fix.

If you manually edit the com.torusknot.SourceTreeNotMAS.plist file under ~/Library/Preferences/com.torusknot.SourceTreeNotMAS.plist.

set the gitCustomPath key to

/usr/local/bin/git

this will make it resolve properly on startup

I believe the issue comes from the file selector and not something internal in sourcetree.

kachkaev · Answer

Please fix this bug, it should be pretty straightforward. 🙏

I've been using SourceTree and Homebrew for years. Every time I run `brew upgrade`, I see a ton of errors in SourceTree and this is very demotivating. Steps to mitigate the errors are time-consuming and pretty dull – I have to open SourceTree Preferences, go to 'git' tab, press 'Use System Git', press 'OK', press 'Use System git-lfs`, press 'OK', close preferences and finally hit cmd+R in every opened SourceTree window. Doing so is necessary every couple of weeks, with every new git update coming from Homebrew.

As a developer who's primary IDE is VSCode, I'm beginning to think of using it as my git client every time error modals in SourceTree are thrown in my face 😞

Daniel_296onp · Answer

I've got this problem, too. In my opinion SourceTree should be able to follow the symlink from /usr/local/bin/git