Why is the fork option not showing up?

[Alessandro Wilner]

I created a bitbucket account using google authentication, and I'm trying to fork a repo, but the fork option doesn't appear. I confirmed with the repo owner, forks are not restricted and there already are more than 10 forks. I tried some other random repos and I can only clone or download, not fork. I tried using chrome and firefox on different machines (mac, pc, android)...
Any ideas?

[Stefan Prelle · Accepted solution]

I noticed that explicitly granting people read access allows them to not just read, but also fork.

I still consider it a bug, that you cannot fork a public repository, but at least there is a workaround.

[Stefan Prelle]

The bug has been fixed now with BCLOUD-22395

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi @Alessandro Wilner and @Stefan Prelle,

Our development team is looking into this, I'll post here when I have an update.

Kind regards,
Theodora

[Stefan Prelle]

@Theodora BoudaleThanks for looking into it.

I also opened a Jira ticket with Bitbucket support ( https://support.atlassian.com/requests/BBS-196964 ). The response there was

"I checked further on your request and currently, we do not have this feature available, and the workaround is the same as you have pointed out, i.e. giving user the permission to the repository after which the Fork option is available to the user."

I cannot really believe this explanation. E.g. my repo ( https://bitbucket.org/rpgframework-cloud/shadowrun6-eden/src/master/ ) had 14 forks without that I ever needed to give read permissions.

However, as a result of my bug report, a feature request for being able to fork public repos has been opened: BCLOUD-22390 - Public repository not having Fork option :)

Cheers,
  Stefan

[JayBean]

Very odd bug, I have a large (300+ forks) public repo and this has also stopped working for me.

Testing it with a different account also has the same results as others where they dont have the option to fork anymore

[Stefan Prelle]

There is a open bug ticket now - we are expected to Vote and Watch

[Theodora Boudale]

Hi Stefan,

Apologies for the confusion created in the support ticket. This is definitely a bug, I've discussed it with my colleague who is handling your support request and informed her.

The bug was introduced after a recent update and our development team is working on it. When this is fixed, an update will be posted in the public bug report you linked.

Kind regards,
Theodora