Misleading “account suspended from opening pull requests” message when contributing to a specific fork

[chrissolanilla]

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Bug

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Description

While attempting to open a pull request from my fork to a friend’s repository, GitHub displayed the message:

“Your ability to open a pull request has been suspended.”

This was alarming, as it suggests a global account-level restriction. However, my account is not suspended:

I can successfully open pull requests to other repositories, I can contribute normally elsewhere on GitHub, and GitHub Support later confirmed there is no global suspension on my account.

This appears to be repo-specific or fork-specific behavior, but the message implies a full account suspension.

Expected behavior

If pull requests are blocked due to: repository-level permissions, repository settings, fork restrictions, or moderation actions limited to a single repo: then the UI should clearly state that scope, rather than implying a platform-wide account suspension.

Actual behavior

The UI displays a suspension message that strongly implies a global account penalty, which caused significant confusion and concern.

Why I think this matters a lot

As both a professional and hobbyist software developer, seeing an unexpected “account suspended” message is extremely stressful and discouraging. Even though the issue was limited in scope, the wording made it appear far more severe than it actually was.

Additional context

This only occurs when contributing to a specific repository. Pull requests work normally on other repos

Screenshot attached

If helpful, I’d also be happy to contribute a wording fix or help test improved messaging.

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[06000208]

I noticed this issue when comparing branches on one of my forks. When making a PR against the upstream repository, it seems fine, but switching it to another branch of the fork results in this error: