Since I keep getting e-mails from Atlassian Community nagging me to "jump back in", I've finally decided to post the issue that has been greatly annoying us for the last 10 months.
Version 1.7 of SourceTree, working on Windows 7, was the last good version of this software (more on that below). Once logged into the Git server via the SSH agent, the 1.7 stayed logged in for as long as we wanted. Fast forward to 2017: I had to change my failing laptop and my employer handed me Windows 10 machine with preinstalled SourceTree 2.5.5.0. This version does login to Git server via SSH correctly, initially, but then either keeps forgetting SSH login credentials, or disconnects SSH for some other reason just after a few hours! When I try to pull new code it issues the following nonsense:
The only way out of it is to restart SourceTree and re-login. :(At least that's what our IT tells us; they haven't found any other remedy. Is there a trick to work around this thing?
I am reluctant to "upgrade", since in all likelihood the next version will be worse. How do I know that? Past experience. I wrote that version 1.7 was the last good version and it's true. It had a very useful bookmark sidebar and it _worked_ in every respect. Then a hotheaded co-worker "upgraded" SourceTree to version 1.8 and immediately regretted it. Certain features were broken, don't remember which, so he warned me to stay away from it. Next, he "upgraded" to 1.9 when it became available and things got even worse. The story repeated itself: with each subsequent release of SourceTree the software followed path of steady decline. I stayed with version 1.7 as long as I could and after forced switch to 2.5 I see mine was a correct strategy. The 2.5 has an absolutely horrible interface and is broken in several respects; I've just outlined one most irritating bug above.
Why is that? Why Atlassian programmers make each subsequent release of SourceTree worse instead of better? I observed this phenomenon with another (unrelated) software: F-Secure SSH client. In that case the small Finnish business that made this great program was acquired by a larger company which started to make "improvements" to the point where it became unusable. We had to cancel purchase subscriptions and move to something else. What's the excuse for Atlassian, then? Has it been acquired by some bozos who don't know what they are doing, as well?
