Why am I getting "This is not a valid source path / url"

[Brent Bobek]

I know this question has come up, I have been reading threads for two days now, most of which pertain to remote repositories. 

I have inherited a SourceTree + Git setup from the previous support group.

• Source code located on  inhouse Linux Server
• SourceTree installed on inhouse Windows Server 2012
• SourceTree: I can see two repositories (I think they are copies).
• LinuxServer: I searched for .git folders and found 6 of them
  • 4 of them are located in base folders for 4 instances of Source Code.
  • 2 of them seem to be Clones of 2 of the above.
• SourceTree: If I try to Clone a repository and enter the path to any of the four source instances (including the 2 that seem to have clones already), I get the error message "This is not a valid source path / url"
• SourceTree: If I try to Clone a repository and enter the path to the "clones", it recognizes them as GIT.  
• LinuxServer: git status from the 4 Source Code folders returned a list of "Untracked files".
• LinuxServer: git init from 1 of the Source Code folders returned "reinitialized existing Git repository in /foldername/.git
• Linux Server git status from same Source Code Folder returned a large list of files in Changes to be committed, as well as the list of untracked files.
• SourceTree: tried to clone repository that I ran git init from, receive same error: "This is not a valid source path / url"

Any help would be appreciated

[Brent Bobek · Accepted solution]

What I ended up doing was creating the clone from the Linux Host. Navigated to desired location and ran 
'git clone /absolutepath/existing_repo'

This allowed me to add existing repo (the clone I just made) to Source Tree without the error. (I did try adding the existing repo before creating a copy, and got the error)

[Sashi Bala]

Had similar issue on version 2.4.8. I installed git on the machine and it worked after that. You could do this by going to Source Tree --> Tools --> Options --> Git -->Use Embedded git (If you haven't installed git on your machine) or Use System Git (If you have installed git on your machine.)

[akileswar03]

Can't believe such a simple solution works perfectly. Had to go through this issue for months. 

[Mark Bidar]

Thanks for the answer, just wasted two hours on this. :(