How to privately investigate a missing repository and ownership transfer?

[Deewashdk]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

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Hello GitHub Community,

I am seeking guidance on how to contact GitHub Support privately regarding a missing private repository.

Our GitHub Free account previously had access to a repository, and we received an official GitHub notification that the original owner had initiated a transfer to our account.

The repository is now inaccessible under both the original and intended destination URLs, returning "Repository not found".

We have also checked our account's repositories and deleted repositories, without finding it.

We need to establish whether the ownership transfer was completed and whether the repository was subsequently transferred, renamed, deleted, or our access was changed.

As this involves commercially sensitive source code and repository ownership, we do not wish to share further details publicly.

Could someone advise how a GitHub Free user can request a confidential investigation into the repository's transfer and access history?

Thank you for your assistance.

[morvayo]

start at the support portal signed into the intended receiving account and choose the account access topic github free still permits account and security reports although general private repository technical support is limited include both repo URLs and the transfer email date privately without source code or credentials also an initiated transfer is not proof it completed because transfers to personal accounts require acceptance within one day transfer rules support would need to determine what actually happened

[PeterYousefi]

Go directly to the GitHub Support Portal.

Select the Account or Security category. (GitHub Free accounts receive full support for account access and security issues).

In your ticket, include the original repository URL, the intended destination URL, and the exact timestamp of the transfer notification email. Do not include sensitive source code.

Note on the root cause: If the repository was being transferred to a personal user account, the transfer invitation strictly expires after 24 hours. If it wasn't explicitly accepted within that window, the transfer aborts, which typically results in the exact "Repository not found" error you are seeing. Support will be able to verify if the transfer simply timed out.