TortoiseGit keeps asking for SSH passphrase

I have seen a few questions about this issue but I have not got things to work.

I have TortoiseGit installed on a new PC.

It is setup to use TortoisePlink.exe and I have the correct public/private keys setup on my computer and with BitBucket.

I can push content w/o problems to the remote server but I keep getting a popup window from Pageant asking for my passphrase.

Please note that it is the first time I do a push after switching on the computer. Once it has been entered, I don't have to do it again in that Windows session.

When my computer starts, Pageant does NOT start. If I manually start Pageant there is NO keys listed.

I thought I could suppress that?

Yor SSH key is encrypted, and thus, it needs to be decrypted for usage. This can either be done for

• every connection by putty, plink or tortoise(git)plink,
• every Pageant session (pageant caches the unencrypted key in memory, so that you don't need to re-enter it again and again),
• ever, by using PuttyGen and storing the ssh key unencrypted (then, however, if it gets stolen, an attacker can directly use it).

(Based on my answer on the TortoiseGit issue tracker https://gitlab.com/tortoisegit/tortoisegit/issues/3004#note_33383409)