My install broke after updating, how can I fix it?

Support
1

I was on version 3.2 I believe, two versions back from the current. I used the web interface, but after 50 minutes, the site was still down.

I logged into the console, and tried ./launcher rebuild app, but the system keeps saying I don’t have enough memory. I have a 25GB machine, and prior to the update, I had 8GB available according to the Discourse dashboard. I tried to recover space, and the system tries to install, but then I get this error again.

Screen Shot 2024-09-15 at 12.19.00 AM
Screen Shot 2024-09-15 at 12.19.00 AM2166×186 32.1 KB

I noticed upon console login, my Ubuntu was out of date. I did manage to update the 51 outdated packages, but not the core system. It’s still on 22.10. I don’t know if that’s my issue or not here. I still can’t update Ubuntu as it says, “Your Ubuntu release is not supported anymore.”

I don’t know if that’s related to Discourse breaking or not.

From there, I tried spinning up a new server and restoring my backup. However, when I go to upload it from the Discourse web interface, it does not allow me to select the backup file. It’s grayed out.

I’m really at a loss here folks, and could really use some help. The site’s down.

P.S. My backups are not local, but on Backblaze.

2

The thing to do is to copy the backblaze setting to the yml file so that you can restore from the command line. See Restore a backup from the command line and Configure an S3 compatible object storage provider for uploads (but you want to use just the backup settings).

Make sure the new vm is an LTS release (24.04)

You should be able to get the site back up with

./launcher start app

If you’re stuck and want to pay for help see Contact Us - Literate Computing

1 Like
3

I was on the right track then, I tried that, but must have missed a step.

I decided to go back to the old server, ./launcher start app would not work due to the memory issue, in the picture I attached. I decided to upgrade the memory on the box, and wala, she’s back up and running with the latest update.

Thanks so much for dropping the contact us link. I’ll be saving that information!

4

Glad you’re back up! I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to upgrade discourse until you update your os.

5

Interestingly enough, it updated Discourse to the latest release.

I logged into the command line, and tried updating the OS, and received this error,

An upgrade from ‘kinetic’ to "noble’ is not supported with this tool.

When it rains it pours!

I recall when I originally built the server, finding a command to auto-update the OS and packages. Am I imagining that? As it really seems like that never happened and the OS is outdated…

6

That’s great!

It automatically upgrades to the latest packages in that release but not to a new release

1 Like
7

I see!

If I can’t get the OS updated, I’ll reach out.

1 Like
8

One more question…

When S3 backups are enabled, does that mean you cannot restore the backup through the web browser, and you must restore from the command line?

I do notice, after this update, I cannot backup which seems odd.

9

No - you can restore from the browser. If your S3 credentials are correct, you should see the S3 backups at /admin/backups, but to restore, allow restore must be checked.
/admin/site_settings/category/all_results?filter=allow%20restore

2 Likes
10

All right, this is good to know.

It sounds like you can only restore from the S3 backups though.

What’s bizarre, I didn’t touch credentials, I don’t see my old backups, and I cannot backup. All I did was update Discourse from the web GUI, have issues, and update the memory on the box via Digital Ocean to correct.

I logged in, and no backups and unable to backup.

I can’t explain that. I might spin up a new server, add my app.yml file to the configuration and see if my backups show up there. In the meantime, I enabled DO backups, so I have something.

Appreciate the help folks.

11

I fixed my backup issue!

Since nothing changed, but a Discourse update, I commented out the following in my app.yml file, saved it, then ./launcher rebuild app

EXAMPLE:

  # DISCOURSE_S3_REGION: "region"
  # DISCOURSE_S3_INSTALL_CORS_RULE: false
  DISCOURSE_S3_ENDPOINT: <url>
  DISCOURSE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID: <id>
  DISCOURSE_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: <key>
  DISCOURSE_S3_BACKUP_BUCKET: <bucket>
  # DISCOURSE_BACKUP_LOCATION: s3

Wala, now backups work.

So I did some troubleshooting, and when I comment out just DISCOURSE_S3_REGION: that made the backups work. Very strange since this setup worked before the update, but hey, I’ll take the fix!

Hope this helps someone else.