# Bootstrap failed with exit code 128
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [July 11, 2025, 12:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873 "2025-07-11T12:39:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2025, 7:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/21 "2025-07-17T19:12:12Z")
> [@merefield](#):
>
> See Step 5.
do i perform step 5 in isolation, or do i need to do the previous steps again?
---
### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [July 17, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/22 "2025-07-17T22:09:20Z")
It looks like you missed out “stage 5”, but I would go through the whole thing and check.
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### Author:  [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 7:25am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/23 "2025-07-18T07:25:18Z")
In this topic, I think the real issue was the deprecated plugin. I probably won’t go through DigitalOcean’s procedure, but someone else can. 🙂
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 7:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/24 "2025-07-18T07:52:43Z")
rebuilding without swap is not pleasant and risky.
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### Author:  [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 7:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/25 "2025-07-18T07:53:36Z")
even with 8GB of RAM
but then again, there will now be a lot more plugins i don’t need in core
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### Author:  [@merefield](https://meta.discourse.org/u/merefield)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 7:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/26 "2025-07-18T07:56:31Z")
> [@Ethsim2](#):
>
> even with 8GB of RAM
you will likely get away with it, but it’s good practice to have some “run-off”
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### Author:  [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 8:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/27 "2025-07-18T08:53:18Z")
i ran `cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak` but still
```plaintext
root@ubuntu:~# free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.7Gi 1.8Gi 5.0Gi 83Mi 964Mi 5.6Gi
Swap: 0B 0B 0B
```
after `reboot`
---
### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [July 18, 2025, 2:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/28 "2025-07-18T14:42:33Z")
> [@pfaffman](#):
>
> ```plaintext
> echo "/swapfile swap swap auto 0 0" | tee -a /etc/fstab
> sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10
> echo 'vm.swappiness = 10' > /etc/sysctl.d/30-discourse-swap.conf
>
> ```
those are the lines that make the swap persist between boots.
the first adds it to /etc/fstab, the last makes the swappiness get sset at every boot.
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### Author:  [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [July 23, 2025, 12:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/29 "2025-07-23T12:35:05Z")
the single-session output on running your lines is
```plaintext
Last login: Wed Jul 23 13:16:35 2025
root@ubuntu:~# echo "/swapfile swap swap auto 0 0" | tee -a /etc/fstab
/swapfile swap swap auto 0 0
root@ubuntu:~# sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10
vm.swappiness = 10
root@ubuntu:~# echo 'vm.swappiness = 10' > /etc/sysctl.d/30-discourse-swap.conf
root@ubuntu:~# free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.7Gi 3.0Gi 389Mi 671Mi 4.3Gi 3.7Gi
Swap: 0B 0B 0B
root@ubuntu:~#
```
i then ran `reboot` in a VNC, and `free -h` returned the desired 2GB of Swap space 🙂
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### Author:  [@agemo](https://meta.discourse.org/u/agemo)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 11:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/30 "2025-07-25T11:58:54Z")
Got snagged by this. Did not expect the backup to fail. Thanks for this topic and the plugin one.
A tweak to communications via ADMIN would be good or at least a check on the `./launcher rebuild app` execution, with **stop** output with a y/n break in terminal continue.
Eventually had to remove the **discotoc** plugin to get it to work here but not sure that was listed in the plugin that are now core.
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### Author:  [@Ethsim2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Ethsim2)
#### Post date: [July 25, 2025, 2:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/31 "2025-07-25T14:39:02Z")
> [@agemo](#):
>
> Thanks for this topic and the plugin one.
Really appreciate that, thanks! I’ve been learning as I go too — glad some of my posts have helped others along the way.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2025, 2:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/bootstrap-failed-with-exit-code-128/373873/32 "2025-08-24T14:39:39Z")
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