etherpad-lite: Crash on first page access: "AbsolutePaths - Could not identity Etherpad base path..."

Describe the bug With a fresh install from github of v 1.9.1 usins Sqlite3 as datastore, the server starts, but on first page access exits with this message:

[2023-07-12 14:01:14.032] [ERROR] AbsolutePaths - Could not identity Etherpad base path in this linux installation in "/home/magnus/etherpad-lite/src/node_modules/ep_etherpad-lite"

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

git clone https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite.git
Customize settings.json. Note I am using sqlite3 backend and accessing etherpad-lite behind a reverse proxy.
Install sqlite3 by doing: cd src; npm i sqlite3
cd ~/etherpad-lite; sh src/bin/run.sh
Access a pad at https://myserver/pad/p/pagename (this worked on my old install)
etherpad-lite server crashes with error message shown above.

Expected behavior etherpad-lite serves out page like it used to before I tried to upgrade to 1.9.1.

Screenshots If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Server (please complete the following information):

Etherpad version: 1.9.1
OS: [e.g., Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS
Node.js version (node --version): v16.20.1
npm version (npm --version): 8.19.4 (although when the server starts, it says (npm --version: 6.14.18)
Is the server free of plugins: Yes - fresh install from git.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

OS: MacOS 12.6.6
Browser: Chrome
Version 114.0.5735.198

Additional context Add any other context about the problem here.

I’m using sqlite3 for data storage and do have an old database from previous install, and the server does run behind a reverse-proxy.

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created a year ago
Reactions: 1
Comments: 17 (8 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

For what it’s worth, I went back to ‘master’, and ran with ETHERPAD_PRODUCTION=true, and I think the problem I saw does not occur. I’d been flailing a bit though, so I deleted everything and started with a fresh pull from github, and with ETHERPAD_PRODUCTION=true problem did not occur.

I further note that when running in this way, src/node_modules/ep_etherpad-lite does not exist.

risacher on Jul 12, 2023

If you want and have the time, you could even check out my branch at https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite/pull/5812 It’s called fix-admintests, but the name is misleading, it should be fix-npm. It gets rid of the the old npm version that you saw and works one my machine and some others, however some report it does not work on their machine…

rm -rf src/node_modules ./node_modules package* src/package*
git checkout src node_modules
git checkout fix-admintests
npm i sqlite3 # you don't need --no-save anymore
sh src/bin/run.sh

webzwo0i on Jul 12, 2023

@webzwo0i Attaching the transcript of your suggestion. Summary: did not work. transcript.txt

risacher on Jul 12, 2023

Please try running npm with --no-save, e.g.

rm -rf src/node_modules ./node_modules
git checkout node_modules # to regenerate a symlink
npm i sqlite3 --no-save # in the root directory
sh src/bin/run.sh

webzwo0i on Jul 12, 2023