jesseduffield/lazygit · error

error while trying to download latest lazygit: %s

Error message

error while trying to download latest lazygit: %s

What it means

Returned by updates.go's download logic when the HTTP GET for the lazygit release tarball completes but the server responds with a non-200 status. The message embeds the HTTP status line (e.g. '404 Not Found'), so the cause is always server-side routing, rate limiting, or a bad URL — not a network failure (which would surface as the http.Get error instead).

Source

Thrown at pkg/updates/updates.go:276

	}

	// Create the zip file
	out, err := os.Create(zipPath)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer out.Close()

	// Get the data
	resp, err := http.Get(rawUrl)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	defer resp.Body.Close()

	// Check server response
	if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
		return fmt.Errorf("error while trying to download latest lazygit: %s", resp.Status)
	}

	// Write the body to file
	_, err = io.Copy(out, resp.Body)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	u.Log.Info("untarring tarball/unzipping zip file")
	err = u.OSCommand.Cmd.New([]string{"tar", "-zxf", zipPath, "lazygit"}).Run()
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}

	// the `tar` terminal cannot store things in a new location without permission
	// so it creates it in the current directory. As such our path is fairly simple.
	// You won't see it because it's gitignored.
	tempLazygitFilePath := "lazygit"

View on GitHub (pinned to c477a2959b)

Solutions

1. Retry after a short wait — transient 403 rate limits and freshly-published-release 404s resolve themselves
2. Check the status text in the message: 404 means the asset URL is wrong for your version/arch (report or wait for assets); 403 usually means GitHub rate limiting
3. Download the release manually from GitHub releases and replace the binary, then verify with lazygit --version
4. If behind a proxy, ensure HTTP(S)_PROXY env vars let the updater reach github.com

curl -fsSI -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' "https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit/releases/latest" | grep -q 200 || echo 'release endpoint unreachable'

Retry the update after a delay for 403/429 (rate limit); on 404 treat as a missing asset and fall back to manual download from the releases page instead of retrying.

When it happens

Trigger: Clicking 'upgrade' in lazygit (or self-update) when the computed release URL is wrong for the platform/version (404), GitHub rate-limits the request (403), or a proxy/redirect returns 3xx/5xx. resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK triggers it, including 2xx variants like 206.

Common situations: Version metadata mismatch after a just-published release (asset not yet uploaded); corporate proxy intercepting the download; GitHub API rate limits from shared CI IPs; misconfigured OS/Arch in the update check.

Related errors

• Update failed: {{.errMessage}}
• Cannot change context while in patch building mode because w
• No patch created yet. To start building a patch, use 'space'
• Patch is still empty. Add some files or lines to your patch
• No config file found

AI-assisted analysis of jesseduffield/lazygit@c477a2959b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d416da628bd84c4f. Report an issue: GitHub.