Projects: remote branches intermittently disappear and reappear after SSH connection to host

Current Behavior

Remote branches intermittently disappear from:

Projects → Commit History → Manage remote branch

For example, only:

• origin/dev
• origin/main

may be shown, while other remote branches still exist in the remote repository.

The interesting part is that simply opening an SSH connection to the host where Node-RED is running seems to affect the behavior.

I do NOT execute any Git command over SSH.

After establishing the SSH connection, I return to the Node-RED web interface, click the refresh button in "Manage remote branch", and all remote branches immediately appear again.

No changes are made to the Git repository itself.

Expected Behavior

Clicking refresh in "Manage remote branch" should always retrieve and display the current list of remote branches.

The list should not depend on whether an SSH session to the Node-RED host has recently been established.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Run Node-RED with Projects enabled.
2. Open: Projects → Commit History → Manage remote branch
3. Click refresh.
4. Occasionally, only some remote branches are displayed.
5. Connect to the Node-RED host via SSH.
6. Do not execute any Git commands.
7. Return to the existing Node-RED browser session.
8. Click refresh again in "Manage remote branch".
9. The previously missing remote branches immediately appear.

Important Detail

No git fetch, git pull, git remote update, checkout, or any other Git command is executed during the SSH connection.

Simply establishing an SSH session to the server appears to be enough.

The remote repository itself is unchanged.

This makes me suspect that this may be related to the Node-RED Projects Git integration, SSH environment/session handling, cached remote refs, SSH agent handling, or a timing/state issue.

Environment

• Node-RED: 5.0.4
• Node.js: 26.5.1
• Git: 2.53.0
• OS: Ubuntu Linux
• Kernel: 7.0.0-1010-aws
• Architecture: aarch64 / arm64
• Host: AWS EC2

Full system information:

Node-RED v5.0.4
Node.js v26.5.1
git version 2.53.0
Linux aws #10-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 23 01:53:33 UTC 2026 aarch64 GNU/Linux