How to solve TortoiseGitPlink Fatal Error?

On windows 8.1 and TortoiseGit 2.1.0.0, changing SSH Client to just "ssh.exe" solved this issue.


This error indicates that the server requires public key authentication and no key was provided by the client.

TortoiseGit by default uses TortoiseGitPLink (which is based on Putty Link).

Therefore it requires key to be stored in the putty format and also

  • configured in the putty session (cf. https://tortoisegit.org/docs/tortoisegit/tgit-ssh-howto.html) OR
  • loaded in putty agent (this is done by TortoiseGit if loading ssh keys is enabled; can also be done manually by starting Putty authentication agent (can be found in the Startmenu or in TortoiseGit installation folder) and then loading your key; also other alternatives such as KeePass KeyAgent integrations exist).

You can, however, also use OpenSSH, by setting the SSH client to ssh.exe on TortoiseGit -> Settings -> Network if you have a OpenSSH key configured.


Or run Putty authentication agent (Pageant.exe) from TortoiseGit folder (usually C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin) and add PuttyKey manually to the app.


I opened TortoiseGit->Settings -> Network and in SSH Client I changed "ssh.exe" instead of "TortoiseGitPlink.exe". Now it works fine.