"We are having trouble parsing your context" in GitPod

[TiffanyDonner]

Describe the bug

I created a new repository in GitHub and clicked the green button toopen GitPod however, I get an error of "We are having trouble parsing your context
Error: GitHub API Error. Status: 500
Please file an issue if you think this is a bug.

Expected behavior

To open my new repository...

[Kreyren]

afaik this is caused by a syntax error in .gitpod.yml please verify

[jankeromnes]

afaik this is caused by a syntax error in .gitpod.yml please verify

No, the error "We are having trouble parsing your context" is about mis-using the gitpod.io/# URL prefix, and has nothing to do with .gitpod.yml.

E.g. try visiting https://gitpod.io/#what-is-this

The supported context URLs are currently GitHub or GitLab URLs, e.g.:

• https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/gitpod-io/website (repo)
• https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/gitpod-io/website/pull/508 (PR)
• https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/gitpod-io/website/tree/jx/latex-in-gitpod (branch)
• https://gitpod.io/#https://github.com/gitpod-io/website/issues/74 (issue)
• https://gitpod.io/#https://gitlab.com/gitpod/spring-petclinic (same as above but in GitLab)

Things that are not yet supported by the gitpod.io/# prefix:

• Typos (e.g. adding a space after the #, or messing up the https:// in the GitHub/GitLab URL, etc)
• Gists
• Random websites

Note: Support for Bitbucket.org URLs, and for self-managed GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket instance URLs is coming soon.

[jankeromnes]

Ah, I just noticed the Error: GitHub API Error. Status: 500 in the original report.

In that case, maybe the URL was indeed a valid GitHub URL, but for some reason the GitHub API returned HTTP 500 Internal Server Error to a request from Gitpod.

This can happen when GitHub.com has a temporary outage (check https://www.githubstatus.com/), but it's almost always temporary, so if you retry the same thing (sometimes immediately, sometimes after after a few minutes) it will likely work.

[Kreyren]

For the record this is the error message on mis-use of context url alike https://gitpod.io/#https://githfasfasub.com/gitpod-io/gitpod/issues/1505:

[TiffanyDonner]

Just in case anyone has this issue in the future. I was able to clear it by logging out and logging back in!

[Kreyren]

I was able to clear it by logging out and logging back in! @TiffanyDonner

FWIW from the informations provided we believe that it's because GitHub had a temporary shortage which prevented gitpod from authentificating the workspace. So you would likely resolve the issue by re-openning the workspace.

Closing as resolved ^-^