# Unable to rebuild, 'bundle exec rake assets:precompile' failed

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-rebuild-bundle-exec-rake-assets-precompile-failed/137386>\
**Category:** Self-hosting\
**Created:** [December 30, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-rebuild-bundle-exec-rake-assets-precompile-failed/137386 "2019-12-30T18:44:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trusktr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/trusktr/32/116841_2.png) [@trusktr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/trusktr)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/unable-to-rebuild-bundle-exec-rake-assets-precompile-failed/137386/1 "2019-12-30T18:44:11Z")

</div>

I have a discourse installation, installed with [standard install](https://meta.discourse.org/t/142537?silent=true) steps. For the first time, I tried modifying `app.yml` to update SMTP settings, and then I ran `./launcher rebuild app` and it fails with:

```plaintext
FAILED
--------------------
Pups::ExecError: cd /var/www/discourse && su discourse -c 'bundle exec rake assets:precompile' failed with return #<Process::Status: pid 521 exit 1>
Location of failure: /pups/lib/pups/exec_command.rb:112:in `spawn'
exec failed with the params {"cd"=>"$home", "hook"=>"assets_precompile", "cmd"=>["su discourse -c 'bundle exec rake assets:precompile'"]}
13cae1b12cdf902161a5a7e297f2142a6379e6b22b1c6b1d0722d25636f5341c
**FAILED TO BOOTSTRAP** please scroll up and look for earlier error messages, there may be more than one.
./discourse-doctor may help diagnose the problem.
==================== END REBUILD LOG ====================

```

I’m on `Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.13.0-57-generic x86_64)`, with Discourse version `2.4.0.beta8 (`[`e7bd288d7b`](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commits/e7bd288d7b1019c6986a7eac7d8f9cb9505cb0bb)`)`.

I ran `./discourse-doctor`, but that contains the same error with no further information.

Any ideas?

How do I further debug this? Should I manually run `cd /var/www/discourse && su discourse -c 'bundle exec rake assets:precompile'` to see what happens?

This is my first time using Discourse. It is a vanilla Discourse installation with no plugins, and I simply tried to update SMTP settings in app.yml then rebuild as mentioned in [How to modify email settings](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-modify-email-settings/60202).

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