Git - push local repo to a new remote repository - gitlab

Question

I have a group in GitLab which has one repository under it in the remote and all works fine with that. However, I am now trying to create the following scenario:
Create new folder user1 and cd into it
git init
create new file
git add .
git commit -m "msg"
git remote add my-proj https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git
git push --all -u https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and I can't figure out what I am doing wrong, see example below:
This one worked well:
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in F:/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1/.git/
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 (master)
$ git add .
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 (master)
$ git commit -m "msg"
[master (root-commit) c98d5d4] msg
1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 New Text Document.txt
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 (master)
$ git remote add my-proj https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 (master)
$ git push --all -u https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git
Enumerating objects: 3, done.
Counting objects: 100% (3/3), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 216 bytes | 216.00 KiB/s, done.
Total 3 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
remote:
remote:
remote: The private project my-proj/pro was successfully created.
remote:
remote: To configure the remote, run:
remote: git remote add origin https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git
remote:
remote: To view the project, visit:
remote: https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro
remote:
remote:
remote:
To https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git
* [new branch] master -> master
Branch 'master' set up to track remote branch 'master' from 'https://gitlab.com/my-proj/pro.git'.
This one failed:
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 - Copy
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in F:/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 - Copy/.git/
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 - Copy (master)
$ git add .
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/my-proj/user1 - Copy (master)
$ git commit -m "hi"
[master (root-commit) 6c9fe76] hi
1 file changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 New Text Document.txt
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/elixir-group/user1 - Copy (master)
$ git remote add ty https://gitlab.com/my-proj/ty.git
Gilad#DESKTOP-7SI7CJF MINGW64 /f/proj-uzip/elixir-group/user1 - Copy (master)
$ git push --all -u https://gitlab.com/my-proj/ty.git
remote: You are not allowed to push code to this project.
fatal: unable to access 'https://gitlab.com/my-proj/ty.git/': The requested URL returned error: 403
I did them both one after the other, same process not sure why sometimes it works and sometimes not

Answer 1

It seems like the issue is with GitLab preservation of old deleted repositories. What happened is that my repository was already created some time ago and I deleted it, however, it is still in 'Pending Deletion' state which I assume means that GitLab still sees it as active in some way.
So once I tried to create a new repository with the same name GitLab told me I can't access it, but once I created a new repository that wasn't been created before it worked.
So I guess this is how it works in GitLab but I find it weird that they are working this way.