How to understand the `gpg failed to sign the data` problem in git

README.md

Problem

You have installed GPG, then tried to commit and suddenly you see this error message after it:

error: gpg failed to sign the data
fatal: failed to write commit object

Debug

For understanding what's going on, first check what git is doing, so add GIT_TRACE=1 at the beginning of the command you used before (git commit or git rebase):

GIT_TRACE=1 git commit

With that you can see what GPG is doing: Probably you will see something like this

10:37:22.346480 run-command.c:637       trace: run_command: gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <your GPG key>

(Check if your GPG key is correct)

Execute that gpg command again in the command line:

gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <your GPG key>

👆🏻 With this now you could see what happened in detail!

Solutions

We can have many problems, but I list what I found:

1. It could be that the GPG key was expired: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47561300/532912

2. Another thing could be that the secret key was not set properly (In my case the message said gpg: signing failed: No secret key as it can be see in the image below). It means that is not finding the key that was set. You would need to set up the GPG key in Git (again):

   • List the secret keys available in GPG.

   gpg --list-secret-keys --keyid-format=long

   • Copy your key
   • Set your key for your user in git

   git config --global user.signingkey <your key>

3. Another popular solution that could help was shared here by @NirajanMahara: https://gist.github.com/paolocarrasco/18ca8fe6e63490ae1be23e84a7039374?permalink_comment_id=3767413#gistcomment-3767413

4. You can see in the thread of this gist other ways to find the solution to other problems. I recommend to read the Github guide for signing commits with GPG.

Hope it helps!

I haven't seen this one yet in thread so in case anyone else encounters it in a small terminal window:

With the same initial error and trace log I ran gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <your GPG key> but it hung indefinitely with no output.
So I tried echo "test" | gpg --clearsign and got this error:

> echo "test" | gpg --clearsign                                          
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

test
gpg: signing failed: Screen or window too small
gpg: [stdin]: clear-sign failed: Screen or window too small

So turns out you can get this error if your terminal window is too small because the key passphrase box cannot pop up

Thanks @paolocarrasco and @truemiller for the pointers!

I'm on Windows using the terminal and Gpg4Win (instead of Git Bash), and this helped me solve the gpg: signing failed: No secret key issue.

Make sure that git config gpg.program points to the gpg.exe file from the package by doing the following:

1. Run where.exe gpg.
2. If the output returns several executables, locate the one from Gpg4Win (by default, the path is C:\Program FIles (x86)\GnuPG\bin\gpg.exe.
3. Run git config --global gpg.program <path/to/gpg/from/Gpg4Win>

(source here)

Thanks so much for this @NirajanMahara . This worked like a charm!

Thank you! Guided me perfectly through my issue and resolved within minutes :)

I you're on WSL2, maybe this can help:

• Add those lines to ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf

  use-agent 
  pinentry-mode loopback
  

• Add this line to ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf

  allow-loopback-pinentry
  

Tried pretty much everything and this was what worked for me, thank you!

Thanks
@gauravk-io

Thank you!

Thank you @gauravk-io , I did what you did and resolved the error.

I you're on WSL2, maybe this can help:

* Add those lines to `~/.gnupg/gpg.conf`
  ```
  use-agent 
  pinentry-mode loopback
  ```

* Add this line to `~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf`
  ```
  allow-loopback-pinentry
  ```

Thanks, worked on WSL2.

echo "test" | gpg --clearsign

I haven't seen this one yet in thread so in case anyone else encounters it in a small terminal window:

With the same initial error and trace log I ran gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau <your GPG key> but it hung indefinitely with no output. So I tried echo "test" | gpg --clearsign and got this error:

> echo "test" | gpg --clearsign                                          
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

test
gpg: signing failed: Screen or window too small
gpg: [stdin]: clear-sign failed: Screen or window too small

So turns out you can get this error if your terminal window is too small because the key passphrase box cannot pop up

Thanks @paolocarrasco and @truemiller for the pointers!

Yup. This was it for me.
Thank you!

omg I just need to run export GPG_TTY=$(tty)

3. then use export GPG_TTY=$(tty)

I tried everything and found that comment, you saved me bro

Thank you! It worked for me following each step ❤️

On MacOS, I have to install pinentry-mac to enter passphrase

brew install pinentry-mac
echo "pinentry-program $(which pinentry-mac)" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
killall gpg-agent

Thank you for this!

I'm on Windows using the terminal and Gpg4Win (instead of Git Bash), and this helped me solve the gpg: signing failed: No secret key issue.

Make sure that git config gpg.program points to the gpg.exe file from the package by doing the following:

1. Run `where.exe gpg`.

2. If the output returns several executables, locate the one from Gpg4Win (by default, the path is C:\Program FIles (x86)\GnuPG\bin\gpg.exe.

3. Run `git config --global gpg.program <path/to/gpg/from/Gpg4Win>`

(source here)

This worked for me. Thank you very much.

I tried this method and still I'm getting this error while commit my changes.

$ git commit -S -m "workflow files commit"
error: cannot spawn gpg2: No such file or directory
error: gpg failed to sign the data
fatal: failed to write commit object

@babud08 i think you have to set git global config for gpg.program

Find your gpg.exe path by using:
where gpg

and use Git Bash to configure the path
git config --global gpg.program <path>

Thank you!

gpg --status-fd=2 -bsau F93581548CDBCCB7
[GNUPG:] KEY_CONSIDERED E4C9A7533D31D43B288E162FF93581548CDBCCB7 2
[GNUPG:] BEGIN_SIGNING H10

and it just hangs there.

Dude, I just misspelled user.signingkey as user.signkey

Thank you! My key was wrong. Working now.

What worked for me was setting up program.

1. first determine the location of your gpg installation. You can use which gpg.
2. copy the result in the previous step and run the command

git config --global gpg.program "<paste the installation location here>"

On MacOS, I have to install pinentry-mac to enter passphrase

brew install pinentry-mac
echo "pinentry-program $(which pinentry-mac)" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
killall gpg-agent

THANK YOU!!! I had to do this and now it's working for me. HUGE KUDOS TO YOU!!

On my Mac all I had to do was

killall gpg-agent

I you're on WSL2, maybe this can help:

* Add those lines to `~/.gnupg/gpg.conf`

use-agent
pinentry-mode loopback

* Add this line to `~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf`

allow-loopback-pinentry

Thanks, worked on WSL2.

Thank you @luiguip , that was the fix for me!

Even after trying the above methods if the problem didn't get resolved, you can restart gpg-agent

systemctl --user status gpg-agent
systemctl --user restart gpg-agent

On MacOS, I have to install pinentry-mac to enter passphrase

brew install pinentry-mac
echo "pinentry-program $(which pinentry-mac)" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
killall gpg-agent

This is the true solution 👍

On MacOS, I have to install pinentry-mac to enter passphrase

brew install pinentry-mac
echo "pinentry-program $(which pinentry-mac)" >> ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf
killall gpg-agent

this works like a charm 🚀

I tried differents solutions:

1.- Change the path in "git config --global gpg.program"
2.- See if there were any misspelled variables
3.- echo "test" | gpg --clearsign

But they didn't work.

Finally the solution was run:

git config --global gpg.program gpg

if you use gpg2, change gpg for gpg2

I hope this solution works for you

After upgrading my OSX to Monterey it stoped to work without reason. The GIT_TRACE didn't help to much because everything was correctly set. In the end I reinstalled the GPG Sutie via brew with the command brew reinstall --cask gpg-suite and it fixed the issue.

Doing this resolved my issue. Thanks!