GitHub Auth Window Freezes After Authorization During Repo Import

Support
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1

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to import a GitHub repository into Netlify, but I’m running into a blocker with the GitHub authentication step.

When I click to connect my GitHub account, the authentication pop-up window opens normally. However, right after I click “Authorize”, the pop-up window completely freezes. It doesn’t close, it doesn’t redirect, and the main Netlify dashboard remains stuck waiting for the authentication to finish.

To isolate the issue, I have already tried the following troubleshooting steps:

  • Tested across multiple different web browsers.

  • Tried using Incognito/Private browsing modes.

  • Booted into a completely different Operating System to rule out any local OS or cache issues.

Unfortunately, the freezing behavior persists across all of these scenarios.

Has anyone else experienced this recently or know of any workarounds to force the connection?

Thanks in advance for the help!

2

since you’ve already tested across browsers, incognito, and even different operating systems, the problem almost certainly isn’t on your machine. It’s on the GitHub side of the OAuth handshake. What usually causes the popup to hang right after you click “Authorize” is a half-broken connection between Netlify and your GitHub account. The grant exists in a partial state, the callback never completes, and every retry gets stuck in the same place.

The fix is to fully tear down the link on both sides and reconnect from scratch. Netlify actually integrates with GitHub through two separate things, so you need to revoke both of them.

1. Revoke the OAuth app on GitHub. Head to https://github.com/settings/applications, find Netlify in the “Authorized OAuth Apps” list, click it, and hit Revoke access.

2. Uninstall the Netlify GitHub App. Go to https://github.com/settings/installations, find Netlify, click Configure, scroll to the bottom, and uninstall it. If you’re trying to import an org repo, also check https://github.com/organizations/YOUR-ORG/settings/installations and uninstall there too.

3. Disconnect on the Netlify side. In Netlify, go to User Settings, then Applications. If GitHub is still listed under “Installed Git Provider”, remove it.

4. Clear cookies for github.com and app.netlify.com, then close the browser fully.

5. Reopen everything and try the import flow again. This time you’ll get a clean OAuth grant plus a fresh GitHub App install. Make sure to pick the repos (or “All repositories”) on the install screen.

That sequence fixes the vast majority of these popup-freeze cases.

A few other things worth ruling out if it still hangs:

If the repo lives in a GitHub organization, the org might have third-party OAuth app restrictions turned on. Visit https://github.com/organizations/YOUR-ORG/settings/oauth_application_policy and either approve Netlify or request approval from an admin. When the OAuth grant gets silently blocked by org policy, the popup hang is exactly the symptom you’d see.