The user, Brandon007, experienced issues after updating Discourse, resulting in their site being down. The update failed due to memory issues, and they were unable to restore backups from the web interface.
Resolution
With the help of pfaffman, Brandon007 was able to resolve the issue by:
Upgrading the memory on their server.
Restoring the site using the command line.
Updating the OS and packages (although they encountered issues with upgrading the OS).
Additional Issues and Resolutions
Brandon007 was unable to backup their site after the update, but omarfilip clarified that S3 backups can be restored from the web browser if the credentials are correct and “allow restore” is checked.
Brandon007 fixed their backup issue by commenting out the DISCOURSE_S3_REGION setting in their app.yml file and rebuilding the app.
Key Takeaways
Updating the OS is recommended to avoid compatibility issues with Discourse.
S3 backups can be restored from the command line or web browser, depending on the configuration.
Commenting out specific settings in the app.yml file may resolve issues with S3 backups.
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.
I noticed upon console login, my Ubuntu was out of date. I did manage to update the 51 outdated packages, but not the core system.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.
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!
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…
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
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.
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!
