My Git Push Died With a 410, and It Was Not Git’s Fault

My git push died with a 410, and it was not git’s fault

The other day I finished a merge on a client repo, went to push a branch, and the push just failed. No conflict, no auth prompt, nothing I had changed. The error talked about something being “deprecated.” I almost went hunting through my git config for a flag I had set wrong. That would have been the wrong place to look.

Here is the short version, so you do not waste the hour I nearly wasted.

What I ran

git push -u origin feature/my-branch

That command is fine. The -u is not deprecated. All it does is set the upstream so the next push can be a bare git push. The first push of a new branch is supposed to use it.

What I got back

remote: CHANGE-3222 - Functionality has been deprecated
remote: App passwords are deprecated and must be replaced with API tokens.
remote: https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/bitbucket/changelog#CHANGE-3222
fatal: unable to access '.../my-repo.git/': The requested URL returned error: 410

The word “deprecated” sat right next to my git push command, so it read like a git problem. It is not. This is the remote, Bitbucket Cloud, rejecting my credentials. The push never even started.

What is actually going on

Bitbucket Cloud is removing App Passwords. App Passwords were the old way to authenticate git over HTTPS: you generated one in your account settings and used it in place of your real password. Atlassian is retiring them in favour of API tokens, which have expiry dates and proper scopes. The change is tracked as CHANGE-3222.

The part that bit me is the rollout method. Atlassian is not flipping a single switch on the final day. They are running “brownouts,” short windows where app password auth is turned off early, on purpose, so anyone still using it finds out before the hard cutoff. The brownouts run from June 9, 2026 to July 27, 2026, and app passwords are fully removed on July 28, 2026.

So if your push works on Monday and fails on Tuesday with nothing changed on your end, you are not going mad. You walked into a brownout window. That is exactly the signal it is meant to send.

One detail worth knowing, because it explains the confusing error code. During a brownout, git over HTTPS with an app password fails with HTTP 410 Gone, while API calls with an app password fail with HTTP 401 Unauthorized. I got the 410, which is the git-over-HTTPS case. A 410 normally means “this URL is gone,” which is why it looks for a second like the repo moved. The repo did not move. The auth method did.

Root cause, plainly

• My push command was correct. git push -u origin feature/my-branch is the right command for a first push.
• The failure was server side. Bitbucket rejected my app password because app passwords are being deprecated under CHANGE-3222.
• The 410 is the tell. Git over HTTPS during a brownout returns 410, not the auth error you would expect. The error text says “deprecated,” not “wrong password,” and that is the real clue.

The fix

Stop authenticating with an app password. Switch to an API token. The steps:

• Create an Atlassian API token from your Atlassian account security settings, scoped for Bitbucket.
• Use that token in place of the app password. For git over HTTPS that means updating whatever stores your credential: your OS keychain, your credential helper, or the token baked into a remote URL if you went that route.
• Push again. The command does not change. git push -u origin feature/my-branch works once the credential behind it is a valid token.

If you prefer to never think about token expiry for git, SSH keys are the other option and they sidestep this whole class of problem. For automation and API calls, API tokens are the path Atlassian wants you on.

Why I am writing this down

Two reasons.

First, the error blames the wrong thing. It puts “deprecated” next to your git command, so your instinct is to fix git. The actual fix is in your Atlassian account, not your .git folder. Reading the error one layer up, “the remote rejected me” instead of “my command is wrong,” is the whole game.

Second, the brownout pattern is going to catch a lot of people between now and late July 2026. Build pipelines, deploy scripts, anything that quietly pushes with a stored app password. It will work, then fail, then work again, with no code change to point at. If you see a 410 on a Bitbucket push in that window, do not debug git. Go rotate your credential.

Take the warning shots seriously. A brownout is the system doing you a favour before the real deadline.

Sources:

• Deprecation notice: Bitbucket Cloud app password brownout schedule and next steps
• Bitbucket Cloud transitions to API tokens (Inside Atlassian)
• Bitbucket Cloud changelog