[Bug] Jira and GitHub Issue Tracker settings keep getting deleted every time SourceGit 2025.29 is launched

[ozmium]

SourceGit is a good app. However, whenever SourceGit 2025.29 is launched, it will delete all of the settings for the Jira Issue Tracker links or GitHub Issue Tracker links. This is bad because it results in data loss, and the user becomes frustrated when they have to spend a significant amount of time adding the settings back.

Steps to reproduce the bug, using SourceGit 2025.29 App Image

1. Launch sourcegit-2025.29.linux.amd64.AppImage on Ubuntu Linux. (Other systems may be affected. I have not tested them)
2. Open a Git repository that contains some history. A good example is the SourceGit repository on GitHub.
3. Click on the button "Configure this Repository" at the top-left

4. Go to the "Issue Tracker" tab and add some settings for either GitHub or Jira.

5. Close and relaunch SourceGit 2025.29 and look at the "Configure this Repository" -> "Issue Tracker" settings again

Expected Result

• All the settings should be preserved from what I entered the last time.
• No settings should be deleted.

Actual Result

• The settings are completely erased for every repository.

• The user has to spend a large amount of time re-adding these settings for each Git repo. But they will just delete themselves anyway when the app is Quit and reopened.
• These settings are not saved in the 'Data Storage Directory' in /home/username/.config/SourceGit/preference.json

Impact on customers

• It causes a large data loss due to forgotten settings.
• Users get annoyed because it takes a long time to re-add these settings, even if copying them from a text file.
• Older versions of SourceGit did not have this problem. Examples are sourcegit-2025.14.linux.amd64.AppImage
• The same problem also happens when upgrading SourceGit from an older version to 2025.29. All the Issue Tracker settings are lost.

[love-linger]

Since version 2025.28, local issue tracker rules are save into $GIT_DIR/sourcegit.issuetracker file.

[love-linger]

I can not re-produce this issue on my PC.

[ozmium]

Since version 2025.28, local issue tracker rules are save into $GIT_DIR/sourcegit.issuetracker file.

Thanks for responding.

• I do not have that file in any of my Git repos.
• In addition, I do not want to create these extra files in my Git repos. That's why I kept this setting disabled: "Share this rule in .issuetracker file"
• If possible, please restore the behavior of sourcegit-2025.14.linux.amd64.AppImage, where it was working fine for me. And it didn't need to create additional files in the Git repos.

[love-linger]

It's not stored in the worktree, but in $GIT_DIR like other repository settings and will not shared to others. For example: may be <repo_path>/.git/sourcegit.issuetracker.

[love-linger]

If you check the Share this issue in .issuetracker file option, this rule will be removed from $GIT_DIR/sourcegit.issuetracker and added into <repo_root>/.issuetracker

The difference between 2025.28 and old version is that local (not shared) issue tracker rules are stored in a seperate file instead of $GIT_DIR/sourcegit.settings

[ozmium]

It's not stored in the worktree, but in $GIT_DIR like other repository settings and will not shared to others. For example: may be <repo_path>/.git/sourcegit.issuetracker.

Ok I can see the file now, thanks for explaining. But there are problems:

• I don't think it's a good idea to put the Issue Tracker settings in this file path, in the .git folder of each project. It's very difficult to find it, and it doesn't feel like the right place.
• The bug is still happening for me, because I can see these are just empty text files. So my settings are not being saved inside these text files.
• It doesn't make sense to me to have a 'Data Storage Directory' in /home/username/.config/SourceGit/preference.json but then have another settings file in /home/username/Software_Projects/SourceGit/.git/sourcegit.issuetracker. All the settings for SourceGit should be stored in the preference.json file.
• The same applies to /home/username/Software_Projects/SourceGit/.git/sourcegit.settings. I think these settings should be stored in /home/username/.config/SourceGit/preference.json

[love-linger]

In SourceGit, there are two types of configuration.

• Global configuration (repository independent) will be saved in $APP_DIR/preferences.json.
• Per-project configuration (repository dependent) will be saved in $GIT_DIR/sourcegit.settings.

For example:

You can see:

• Fork's (another well-known git GUI client) configuration file fork-settings
• Gitk's (git official GUI client) configuration file gitk.cache
• SourceTree's (another well-known git GUI client) configuration file sourcetreeconfig

They all put the repository dependent configuration file into repo's $GIT_DIR

The advantage of this is that when we haven't opened the repository, its unique configuration won't be loaded. And when the repository is deleted by the user, its configuration will also be automatically deleted.

[love-linger]

I do not known why your $GIT_DIR/sourcegit.issuetracker is empty. I've just tested sourcegit-2025.30.linux.amd64.AppImage on my Ubuntu 24.04 and it works well.

[ozmium]

And when the repository is deleted by the user, its configuration will also be automatically deleted.

But this is problematic:

• Some people might not want that. If I delete a repository and re-clone it to a new folder location, I would like to preserve all my settings from before. I cannot do that with this method, so I have to retype all my settings from scratch, which is frustrating and time-consuming.
• Is the user aware that all their SourceGit settings will be deleted, when the Git repo is deleted? Probably not.
• You are not in control of the of the Git folder /home/username/Software_Projects/SourceGit/.git/. This is mainly used by Git itself. For example, Git could decide to make the folder read-only, temporarily. This will prevent other apps from writing data into it, and will cause bugs in those apps.

[love-linger]

$GIT_DIR is designed to store local repository settings and it is always writable. User's can put their local settings into it, for example: custom local hooks and seperate configure can be included by $GIT_DIR/config etc.

[love-linger]

In my screenshot, you can see the gitk (git's official gui client) also stores repository dependent settings into it.

[love-linger]

Some people might not want that. If I delete a repository and re-clone it to a new folder location, I would like to preserve all my settings from before. I cannot do that with this method, so I have to retype all my settings from scratch, which is frustrating and time-consuming.

We can also say some people might not want the repository configure still left in SourceGit settings after the repository has been deleted.

Imagine another scenario: the user creates a repository named Demo, then deletes it after few days, and later creates another repository with the same name Demo in the same path. In this case, how does SourceGit determine whether the new Demo is the original repository?

[ozmium]

Ok, fair enough 👍. It's ok to use the project's .git/ folder for these settings. Other Git client apps are also using this folder.

Just to let you know, I have downgraded to sourcegit-2025.25.linux.amd64.AppImage on Ubuntu Linux, and the following bugs do not happen on this version:

• [Bug] Jira and GitHub Issue Tracker settings keep getting deleted every time SourceGit 2025.29 is launched #1725 (this ticket)
• Getting Askpass for every action even when its not needed #1577

So I will stay on version 2025.25 for now. Thank you.

It would be great if you can add some documentation for where the Issue Tracker settings are stored; otherwise people will not know, and it's difficult to find it. You could add this info to the main Readme.md file for the SourceGit project.