The user jo-andre encountered a YAML syntax error during a Discourse reinstallation, initially caused by whitespace on line 1 of the containers/*.yml file. After removing the whitespace, the issue persisted, prompting IAmGav to review the config. The actual problem was discovered to be an invalid " character in the SMTP password, which was resolved by removing it and rebuilding the app IAmGav. pfaffman advised caution with YAML formatting, suggesting the use of discourse-setup to avoid such issues and emphasizing that even small spacing errors or special characters can break the configuration.
Hello!
Ive got an issue when reinstalling Discourse.
Here’s the error:
(<unknown>): control characters are not allowed at line 1 column 1 -e LANG=en_US.UTF-8
YAML syntax error. Please check your containers/*.yml config files.
i used yamllint too check the config. here’s the result.
What is on line 1 ?
If it is an empty line, remove that line and try again
It was nothing!.. And by that i mean whitespace… Of course i read this now.
YAML FILES ARE SUPER SUPER SENSITIVE TO MISTAKES IN WHITESPACE OR ALIGNMENT!
not used to whitespace being a problem in coding. Thank you very much! and sorry for bothering you 
it is no bother at all.
Oh but now probably. That was not the case after all.. 
there was a whitespace on line 1.. but i removed it. Saved and ./launcher rebuild app. but i still getting the same error.
PM me the conf file without the passwords
I’ll check it and send it back
i just PM you, but i can’t see our dialog anywhere. did it go through?
did you get my reply ?
Yes i did. did you correct any mistakes?
yes i did.
put the password back in and rebuild app
alright. got a new error
did not find expected key while parsing a block mapping at line 34 column 3 -e LANG=en_US.UTF-8
The easiest thing is probably to delete your app.yml and run discourse-setup again. It could literally be a single extra or missing space most anywhere. Or tab instead of some spaces. Maybe you can figure it out with yamlint, or maybe you’ll always mess something up when you copy to or from it.
If what you did to break it was add plugins, see that next time you copy/paste the existing git clone line and edit it. That way you can’t mess up the spacing.
i found the problem
the smtp password should not contain the character "
i removed the password and it build.
advised to reset the password and rebuild app again
Oh! Good one. Yeah, I think you might have been able to backslash it, but my solution would have been zero help.
