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Using GitHub Dekstop, I cloned one of my own repositories to my computer, and I named the folder repo:

C:\Users\Lenovo\Desktop\DevFiles\repo

Now if I navigate to the parent folder DevFiles, the repository folder repo is not visible.

But if I just paste C:\Users\Lenovo\Desktop\DevFiles\repo into the URL bar, the folder opens like normal.

Why might this be?

Aryan Beezadhur
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  • Have you tried changing the file explorer view options? Checked the hidden items box? – Parth Shah Jul 06 '20 at 11:36
  • @ParthShah yes. That was one of the answers, but it didn't solve my problem and was deleted – Aryan Beezadhur Jul 06 '20 at 12:23
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    This problem is hard to reproduce, especially without knowing which operating system you are using. – Clijsters Jul 06 '20 at 16:51
  • When you click "Show in File Explorer" : what path appears in the explorer url bar ? do you type the exact same path when you say "File Explorer in the same directory" ? can you add this to your question ? – LeGEC Jul 07 '20 at 13:21
  • This is very strange behaviour. Is there any chance your Git sandboxes are being created as system directories? Those would be hidden by default. I just tried to reproduce your problem, and failed: my new sandbox was created as `Documents\GitHub\` and I can see it when I explore to `GitHub`. – joanis Jul 07 '20 at 14:51
  • @AryanBeezadhur If you want help with this question, I suggest you answer questions asked in comments. We're just trying to get a handle on your problem, which so far it seems no one here actually understands. – joanis Jul 10 '20 at 13:43
  • @AryanBeezadhur Actually, it's the answer to the question by LeGEC that would be most helpful, which I see you just effectively added to the question. So never mind. – joanis Jul 10 '20 at 15:00
  • Another question, though: I'd like to inspect the properties of `repo`. But I'm not sure how to ask Windows for the properties of a folder if you cannot see it in its parent directory in explorer. Two more questions: does the same problem occur if you clone another repo? Does the same problem occur if you clone a repo into a different parent directory? – joanis Jul 10 '20 at 15:05
  • @joanis the same problem occurred when I tried it with a different repo in a different folder, but by doing that I realised something odd which [led me to find the cause of the problem](https://stackoverflow.com/a/62839843/12860895) – Aryan Beezadhur Jul 10 '20 at 17:57
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    This is what we call rubber ducking at my office: you talk to a rubber duck, or a colleague, it often doesn't matter, and while you describe the problem and try to explain the details of it, you find the solution. Glad you found it! – joanis Jul 12 '20 at 13:42

1 Answers1

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This is a problem caused by .

On my Windows PC, OneDrive, which creates a backup of every file on the system, was active. I was trying to access the repo from

C:\Users\Lenovo\OneDrive\Desktop\DevFiles\repo

which is where File Explorer will go by default if I search for DevFiles.

GitHub Desktop had stored the repo in

C:\Users\Lenovo\Desktop\DevFiles\repo

Not in the \OneDrive\ folder.

This is extremely confusing, especially since cloning more repositories had the same problem.

Aryan Beezadhur
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