Pull Shark Achievement Not Updating to Bronze

[Jumbalicious79]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Profile

Body

My Pull Shark achievement is stuck at the default tier (2 PRs) despite having 30+ merged pull requests on repositories I do not own. I should be at
Bronze (16+ merged PRs).

What I've verified:

• All 30 PRs are merged, not just closed
• All PRs are on repos I do not own — I am a contributor
• "Include private contributions on my profile" is enabled in my profile settings
• Achievements are visible/enabled on my profile
• I've logged out and back in
• I've made profile edits to try to force a refresh
• It has been well over 48 hours since reaching 30 merged PRs

What I'm seeing:

• Achievement is stuck at the default tier showing 2 merged PRs
• No change despite meeting the Bronze threshold of 16

This appears to be a known sync issue based on similar reports:

• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/169228
• https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/18305

Would appreciate any help getting this refreshed. Thanks!

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[itxashancode]

Thanks for the detailed troubleshooting steps. This is a known edge case with profile achievements, and your experience aligns with backend sync delays that occasionally occur during contribution graph recalculations.

🔍 Verify Pull Shark Eligibility Criteria

Before diving into sync mechanics, confirm your PRs meet GitHub's exact counting rules:

• ✅ You are the author of the PR (not just a co-author or reviewer)
• ✅ The repository is not owned by you (PRs to your own repos or forks don't count)
• ✅ The PR status is Merged (closed without merge, or abandoned, won't count)
• ✅ The commits are linked to your verified GitHub email
• ✅ PRs are counted toward your public contribution graph (or private graph if your setting is enabled)

If any of these aren't met, the achievement won't progress.

⚙️ How Achievement Sync Works

GitHub calculates achievements asynchronously. The system:

1. Aggregates contribution data nightly and during peak activity
2. Caches tier thresholds and maps them to your profile
3. Pushes updates to the UI when the cache refreshes

There is no public API, CLI command, or UI toggle to force a manual achievement recalculation. Background workers can occasionally stall, especially after account setting changes, bulk merges, or during platform maintenance.

🛠️ Actionable Steps to Trigger a Refresh

1. Check your contribution graph: Navigate to your profile. If the merged PRs aren't appearing on your contribution calendar, they won't count toward achievements. Fix missing contributions by ensuring your local git config user.email matches your GitHub verified email.
2. Toggle contribution visibility: Temporarily disable Include private contributions on my profile, save, wait 5 minutes, then re-enable it. This often triggers a contribution graph rebuild.
3. Merge a new qualifying PR: Submit and merge a PR to a different organization or public repository. This frequently acts as a catalyst, prompting the backend worker to re-evaluate your achievement state.
4. Clear CDN/browser cache: GitHub's profile UI is heavily cached. Test your profile in an incognito window or bypass the cache with Ctrl+F5 / Cmd+Shift+R.

📬 When & How to Contact GitHub Support

If you've verified eligibility, waited 7–10 days, and tried the steps above without success, open a ticket with GitHub Support. Include:

• Your GitHub username
• Direct links to 3–5 qualifying merged PRs
• Screenshots of your profile settings and achievement page
• A note that you've already waited >48 hours and toggled contribution settings

GitHub's engineering team can manually queue a profile data refresh or investigate stuck achievement jobs on the backend.

📖 Official Documentation

• About achievements on your profile
• Showing your contributions on your profile

While there's no instant fix, the steps above cover all known triggers for achievement recalculation. If it remains stuck after a week, GitHub Support is the most reliable path forward.

[Gecko51]

30+ merged PRs stuck at 2 is definitely a sync issue, not a criteria problem. A few things worth double-checking before assuming it's a bug:

Pull Shark only counts PRs merged into repos that you don't own. Forks of your own repos don't count either, so if some of those 30 were opened against forks you created, those get excluded. It sounds like you already checked this, but worth confirming the repos are fully independent from your account.

The counter can stall for longer than 48 hours, especially after backend incidents. I've seen it take up to 10 days to update after a processing backlog. Unfortunately there's no way to manually trigger a recount.

If you're past 7 days and confident the PRs qualify, open a support ticket at support.github.com with your username and a rough list of a few qualifying PRs (repo name + PR number). GitHub staff can force a recalculation on their end. Make sure to mention you've had private contributions enabled and that the PRs are on repos you don't own.

The good news: once the sync kicks in it usually jumps straight to the correct tier rather than incrementing one by one.