Environment Discourse: latest tests-passed Host OS: [Ubuntu 24.04 LTS / 24.04.3 LTS] Install method: official Docker install, running ./discourse-setup Platform: VPS (Digital Ocean) Steps to reproduce Run ./discourse-setup from /var/discourse Enter SMTP details when prompted: SMTP server: smt…

Right. That’s a good bet. @Ethsim2 if you change the password to something with only numbers and letters and not the same as part of the username so you have this issue? Can you share the values you are using? I’ll try to take a look later today.

[image] pfaffman: Can you share the values you are using? [image]

If you removed the 83f…com part of the password and just left the password (5AH…), does it work?

yes, then i run ./launcher rebuild app, since ./discourse-setup had already configured SWAP & created the app.yml

[image] Ethsim2: Password contains special characters (@, !), but the problem is not just YAML quoting: the username string is literally concatenated at the start of the password. Yeah. That’s the issue. There are multiple levels of escaping that need to happen, like when bash reads the valu…

[image] Ethsim2: @ SMTP usernames always contain @ though, don’t they?

Yeah. I don’t think @ should cause a problem.

there’s no ! in my screenshot where the concatenation happens

What is the password you were trying to enter? (And presumably you’re using a different one now!)

[image] pfaffman: What is the password you were trying to enter? the password on the screenshot is 5AHQXrf4LDUmRB1J :slightly_smiling_face: Edit: this password is a default Brevo password created on an account that was since deleted

./discourse-setup puts SMTP username at start of SMTP password

Product Support

Ethsim2 (Ethan ) September 15, 2025, 7:21pm 12

the password on the screenshot is 5AHQXrf4LDUmRB1J

Edit: this password is a default Brevo password created on an account that was since deleted

Topic		Replies	Views
Discourse-setup generates malformed YAML if password contains ':' Bug	1	1183	June 4, 2016
Smtp password set during onboarding process Self-hosting	3	721	April 25, 2021
DISCOURSE_SMTP_PASSWORD change failed Self-hosting	5	1325	December 5, 2017
Troubleshoot email on a new Discourse install Self-Hosting email , configuring , how-to	36	185594	April 27, 2026
Edit SMTP username Product Support	19	2916	November 16, 2020

./discourse-setup puts SMTP username at start of SMTP password

Related topics