Unable to pull code/Access repo despite being added to members

Hello,
I am (was, a workaround was found while writing) unable to clone code from multiple repos that are set to “private” despite being added to their group lists, when accessing them with the web version I get a snackbar (or whatever) that displays “An error occurred while loading commit signatures”, nothing from the repo shows up and trying to clone them gives me "GitLab: You are not allowed to download code from this project.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have have the correct access rights
and the repository exists."
The problem was fixed by bumping me from guest to developer but it was my understanding that the only difference between private and internal was visibility, am I incorrect in this or is this a bug?