What causes "Failed to fetch releases: HTTP {}" in spacedriveapp/spacedrive?

Wait for the rate-limit window to reset (or query through a different network) and retry

spacedriveapp/spacedrive · error · anyhow::Error

Failed to fetch releases: HTTP {}

Error message

Failed to fetch releases: HTTP {}

What it means

fetch_latest_release() does GET https://api.github.com/repos/{repo}/releases/latest with user-agent spacedrive-cli and bails on any non-2xx status. Common codes: 403 unauthenticated rate limit (60 requests/hour per IP), 404 wrong/renamed repo slug, 5xx GitHub incidents, or proxy interference.

Source

Thrown at apps/cli/src/domains/update/mod.rs:133

	}

	println!();
	println!("Successfully updated to version {}", latest_version);

	Ok(())
}

async fn fetch_latest_release(repo: &str) -> Result<GitHubRelease> {
	let url = format!("https://api.github.com/repos/{}/releases/latest", repo);

	let client = reqwest::Client::builder()
		.user_agent("spacedrive-cli")
		.build()?;

	let response = client.get(&url).send().await?;

	if !response.status().is_success() {
		return Err(anyhow::anyhow!(
			"Failed to fetch releases: HTTP {}",
			response.status()
		));
	}

	let release: GitHubRelease = response.json().await?;
	Ok(release)
}

async fn download_file(url: &str, expected_size: u64) -> Result<Vec<u8>> {
	let client = reqwest::Client::builder()
		.user_agent("spacedrive-cli")
		.build()?;

	let response = client.get(url).send().await?;

	if !response.status().is_success() {
		return Err(anyhow::anyhow!(

View on GitHub (pinned to 6dfeccf211)

Solutions

Wait for the rate-limit window to reset (or query through a different network) and retry
Verify connectivity: curl -I https://api.github.com/repos/<repo>/releases/latest
Update manually from the releases page if the API is blocked

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

#!/usr/bin/env bash
status=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' https://api.github.com/repos/spacedrive/spacedrive/releases/latest)
if [ "$status" != 200 ]; then
  echo "GitHub API returned $status; not running sd update now" >&2
  exit 2
fi
sd update

Try / catch

let mut attempt = 0;
loop {
    attempt += 1;
    match fetch_latest_release(repo).await {
        Ok(release) => break release,
        Err(e) if attempt < 3 && e.to_string().contains("HTTP 403") => {
            tokio::time::sleep(std::time::Duration::from_secs(60 * attempt)).await; // rate limit backoff
        }
        Err(e) => return Err(e),
    }
};

Prevention

Cache the latest-release response so repeated 'sd update' calls stay under the 60 req/hr unauthenticated limit
Authenticate API calls with a token in CI where the limit is shared
Check GitHub's rate-limit headers (X-RateLimit-Remaining) before retrying

When it happens

Trigger: Running 'sd update' repeatedly from one IP until the rate limit trips; offline or TLS-intercepting networks; the repo constant pointing at a renamed repository.

Common situations: CI jobs or cron schedules that call 'sd update' frequently; corporate proxies rewriting api.github.com; GitHub outage windows.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of spacedriveapp/spacedrive@6dfeccf211 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c79335bda28c9a64. Report an issue: GitHub.