If you’re migrating a gitlab project from one server to another, unless the two gitlab instances are the same major revision you may run into a couple of problems with the export/import procedure.

The first error you’re likely to hit is something like:

The repository could not be imported.
Error importing repository into pp-computing/todo-list - Import version mismatch: Required 0.1.8 but was 0.1.6

This is because whenever there is a potentially “dangerous” change to the import script, gitlab “fails safe” and refuses to import the project. If the two numbers are reasonably close together (and your project is straight forward enough that you can carefully check the users, permissions, wiki pages, issues and milestones etc then you can try this to pretend that your export tarball is newer than it really is:


mkdir project_export
tar xfv old_export_file.tar.gz -C project_export
cd project_export
echo '0.1.8' > VERSION
tar czf experimental_new_project_export.tar.gz *


If you have milestones in your project, you may hit another error if you’re migrating from a gitlab instance that is older than 9.5 is:


Error importing repository into my-group/my-project - Validation failed: Group milestone should belong either to a project or a group.


The workaround for this one appears to be to import your project into your personal gitlab space, and then “move” it to your group space.

If you hit any errors not covered in the above, let us know below!

(And don’t forget you’ll need to update your remotes in any checked out working copies you have!)