Failed to start code review
Resolved 💬 9 comments Opened Feb 20, 2026 by ankitgoyalio Closed Feb 25, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
<img width="1512" height="982" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/16b0a24b-7e28-4ad8-a971-982462da8dcb" />
Steps to reproduce
- Have only
mainbranch - Use the
/Code Reviewcommand - Choose
Review against a base branch - Error toast
Failed to start code review.
9 Comments
Was this a one-time problem, or can you repro? Does it happen with all of your threads within a given project? Across all projects?
Hey @etraut-openai, I'm able to reproduce it. And it happens only for the given project.
For other project it is working fine. Let me know if you require any more info.
Thanks, that narrows it down. Now we need to determine what's special about that project. Can you offer any other repro steps? Perhaps there's something unusual or noteworthy about that git repo?
@etraut-openai you can checkout the repo over here. I don't find anything unusual about this repo.
I have a working theory, but I could use your help to confirm it.
In your terminal, go to the folder for the project where the error happens, then run:
git merge-base HEAD main. Does that print a SHA, or does it print nothing or generate an error? If it's an error, what is the message?git merge-base HEAD mainprints a SHA.And for some reason
Code Reviewis working now. Not sure what was broken earlier. Let me know if you need any other info.Hmm, well that blows my theory.
OK, I'm glad to hear it's working for you again. I'm going to close the issue, but let me know if you see it again.
what does typing git merge-base HEAD main printing a SHA have to do with fixing it? i had the same issue and this helped me too (ie it now works) but shrugs cant work out why
I got this error after updating OSX and had to accept the new license agreement for Xcode.