# Help deploying older versions of Discourse

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-deploying-older-versions-of-discourse/399409
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Created:** [March 20, 2026, 8:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-deploying-older-versions-of-discourse/399409 "2026-03-20T08:37:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 25

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### Author: ![david](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/david/32/157490_2.png) [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2026, 8:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-deploying-older-versions-of-discourse/399409/25 "2026-03-30T08:49:23Z")

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> [@singi2016cn](#):
>
> The root cause is that the `git symbolic-ref --short HEAD` command can only return the branch name.

We use this command inside an `if [[]]` statement to check whether the supplied ref is the same as the current branch. For tags and non-latest branches, it is expected to fail, so then we hit the ‘else’ branch of the if statement.

That will run a `git checkout ...`, which does work with tags.

> [@singi2016cn](#):
>
> Latest summary: If you only want to deploy the latest Long-Term Support (LTS) version, simply modify `containers/app.yml`:
> 
> ```plaintext
> # Add the following configuration at the end
> params:
> version: esr
> 
> ```
> 
> Then rebuild

Great, glad to hear you got it working!

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_[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-deploying-older-versions-of-discourse/399409)._