Git bash Error: Could not fork child process: There are no available terminals (-1)

Question

I have had up to 8 git bash terminals running at the same time before.

Currently I have only 2 up.

I have not seen this error before and I am not understand

Answer 1

finally figured out what was causing this.

if we use code like this (explicitly or implicitly) i.e. in .bashrc file

eval $(ssh-agent -s)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

it spawns a new process.

if you don't exit it and just close the window, that process is still running. so each new bash opened just keeps adding new ones w/out disposing old ones.

when done with a bash window, simply hit ctrl+d or type exit to kill the agent process, and you should not run out of forks.

Answer 2

Just Restart Your Machine, While Restarting our machine this issue is solved try it.

Answer 3

Windows 10 this worked for me:

1) open cmd as administrator

2) type:

taskkill /f /im git-bash.exe

---

---

3) If there was an Error: The process "ssh-agent.exe" not found. then:

type:

tasklist

4) Find and kill every process with words like "bash" or "git" (This may be a dangerous solution, but once you will find the process name, next time you will know.)

taskkill /f /im ***.exe

Answer 4

In my case, it was related with the use of VS code. Previously I have opened VS code using a git bash terminal and executing

code .

then closing the terminal.

The problem is solved by closing all the VS code windows opened.

When you have any editor or IDE configure to open a terminal as git bash, then when the IDE/IDE is running, the git bash will spin up bash from "C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe" and any other attempt to open bash from a separate window is likely to crash.

The best solution is to kill the IDE/Editor bash and open from a new window or continue from the IDE/Editor command.

Answer 5

For windows, in task-manager kill sh.exe.

Answer 6

I see the problem on windows in git bash when I kill my git bash console without using exit. I found killing ssh-agent.exe task from windows task manager to fix the problem.