diff --git a/src/main/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.java b/src/main/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.java
index 0d95224..19ad258 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.java
@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@
 import static com.google.gerrit.reviewdb.client.RefNames.REFS_HEADS;
 
 import com.google.common.annotations.VisibleForTesting;
-import com.google.common.base.Preconditions;
 import com.google.gerrit.extensions.annotations.PluginName;
 import com.google.gerrit.extensions.events.GitReferenceUpdatedListener;
 import com.google.gerrit.extensions.events.LifecycleListener;
@@ -37,12 +36,13 @@
 import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.net.URI;
 import java.net.URISyntaxException;
+import java.util.ArrayList;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.HashSet;
+import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Objects;
 import java.util.Set;
-import org.apache.http.client.utils.URIBuilder;
 import org.eclipse.jgit.api.errors.GitAPIException;
 import org.eclipse.jgit.api.errors.InvalidRemoteException;
 import org.eclipse.jgit.api.errors.RefNotFoundException;
@@ -159,7 +159,8 @@
         srcRef = "";
       } else {
         if (!Repository.isValidRefName(destRef)) {
-          throw new ConfigInvalidException(String.format("destination branch '%s' invalid", destRef));
+          throw new ConfigInvalidException(
+              String.format("destination branch '%s' invalid", destRef));
         }
 
         srcRef = cfg.getString(SECTION_NAME, name, "srcRef");
@@ -184,7 +185,6 @@
 
       recordSubmoduleLabels = cfg.getBoolean(SECTION_NAME, name, "recordSubmoduleLabels", false);
 
-
       try {
         // http://foo/platform/manifest => http://foo/platform/
         baseUri = new URI(srcRepoKey.toString()).resolve("");
@@ -268,7 +268,6 @@
           wildcardDestinations.add(configEntry.destRepoKey.get());
         }
 
-
         sources.add(configEntry.srcRepoKey.get());
         destinations.add(configEntry.destRepoKey.get());
 
@@ -290,7 +289,9 @@
   public void stop() {}
 
   @Override
-  public void start() { updateConfiguration(); }
+  public void start() {
+    updateConfiguration();
+  }
 
   /** for debugging. */
   private String configurationToString() {
@@ -345,6 +346,11 @@
       try {
         update(c, event.getRefName());
       } catch (IOException | GitAPIException e) {
+        // We only want the trace up to here. We could recurse into the exception, but this at least
+        // trims the very common jgit.gitrepo.RepoCommand.RemoteUnavailableException.
+        StackTraceElement here = Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()[1];
+        e.setStackTrace(trimStack(e.getStackTrace(), here));
+
         // We are in an asynchronously called listener, so there is no user action to give
         // feedback to. We log the error, but it would be nice if we could surface these logs
         // somewhere.  Perhaps we could store these as commits in some special branch (but in
@@ -355,6 +361,24 @@
     }
   }
 
+  /**
+   * Remove boring stack frames. This retains the innermost frames up to and including the
+   * {@code class#method} passed in {@code ref}.
+   */
+  @VisibleForTesting
+  static StackTraceElement[] trimStack(StackTraceElement[] trace, StackTraceElement ref) {
+    List<StackTraceElement> trimmed = new ArrayList<>();
+    for (StackTraceElement e : trace) {
+      trimmed.add(e);
+      if (e.getClassName().equals(ref.getClassName())
+          && e.getMethodName().equals(ref.getMethodName())) {
+        break;
+      }
+    }
+
+    return trimmed.toArray(new StackTraceElement[trimmed.size()]);
+  }
+
   private static class GerritIncludeReader implements ManifestParser.IncludedFileReader {
     private final Repository repo;
     private final String ref;
@@ -489,5 +513,4 @@
     }
     return name;
   }
-
 }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestIT.java b/src/test/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestIT.java
index 7a19516..d9dc131 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestIT.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/googlesource/gerrit/plugins/supermanifest/SuperManifestIT.java
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 import com.google.gerrit.reviewdb.client.Project;
 import com.google.gerrit.reviewdb.client.RefNames;
 import java.net.URI;
+import java.util.Arrays;
 import org.eclipse.jgit.internal.storage.dfs.InMemoryRepository;
 import org.eclipse.jgit.junit.TestRepository;
 import org.eclipse.jgit.lib.BlobBasedConfig;
@@ -165,6 +166,33 @@
     assertThat(branch.file("project3").getContentType()).isEqualTo("x-git/gitlink; charset=UTF-8");
   }
 
+  private void outer() {
+    inner();
+  }
+
+  private void inner() {
+    throw new IllegalStateException();
+  }
+
+  private void innerTest() {
+    try {
+      outer();
+      fail("should throw");
+    } catch (IllegalStateException e) {
+      StackTraceElement[] trimmed =
+          SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.trimStack(
+              e.getStackTrace(), Thread.currentThread().getStackTrace()[1]);
+      String str = Arrays.toString(trimmed);
+      assertThat(str).doesNotContain("trimStackTrace");
+      assertThat(str).contains("innerTest");
+    }
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  public void trimStackTrace() throws Exception {
+    innerTest();
+  }
+
   @Test
   public void wildcardDestBranchWorks() throws Exception {
     setupTestRepos("project");
@@ -365,13 +393,15 @@
   public void testToRepoKey() {
     URI base = URI.create("https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com");
     assertThat(
-        SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.urlToRepoKey(base,
-            "https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/repo")).isEqualTo("repo");
+            SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.urlToRepoKey(
+                base, "https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/repo"))
+        .isEqualTo("repo");
     assertThat(SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.urlToRepoKey(base, "repo")).isEqualTo("repo");
     assertThat(
-        SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.urlToRepoKey(
-            URI.create("https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/"),
-            "https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/repo")).isEqualTo("repo");
+            SuperManifestRefUpdatedListener.urlToRepoKey(
+                URI.create("https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/"),
+                "https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/repo"))
+        .isEqualTo("repo");
   }
 
   // TODO - should add tests for all the error handling in configuration parsing?