Hello, I have encountered the same issue with
Merge access levels are restricted to a single instance per Protected branch. I am unable to set protected branches for the project I created (where I have owner permissions), but my development partner is able to set protected branches for his project. I have tried various combinations of roles in ‘allowed to merge’ and ‘allowed to push and merge’, but I am still unable to effectively create protected branches. My version is 16.1 Community Edition, and I am looking forward to receiving feedback.