New Install - Plugin Page Freezes

PitaJ

@gotwf "sendmail" is an executable on your system. By default (when SMTP transport is disabled and there is no emailer plugin installed), NodeBB uses a sendmail transport provided by the nodemailer package. The sendmail transport will call the sendmail executable on the system, if it exists.

I'm not referring to some NodeBB internal system. Generally we call the system in NodeBB which handles sending emails the "emailer".

gotwf

@pitaj Hmm... Does Debian still ship with Exim by default? Does Exim rename their executable to sendmail? I'd thought not but been a while since I used it. I think OP is using Ubuntu (wh/includes Postfix's sendmail executable as shipped). But they maybe on Deb? Just to clarify.

Qmail would be another example of a Sendmail daemon replacement. Qmail executable is "qmail". Once upon a time pretty much the defacto replacement for Sendmail. Qmail does not call its executable "sendmail".

Hence, although Postfix has evolved as the MTA of choice over the past couple decades it is not the only option. Options which do not rename their MTA binaries so maybe probing/checking for "sendmail" could be less than robust?

Edit: Yeah, Debian does still include Exim by default https://wiki.debian.org/Exim

Sampo2910

@pitaj said in New Install - Plugin Page Freezes:

@sampo2910 sendmail isn't necessary if you have SMTP set up. I just checked. If you share a screenshot of your emails settings page I can help you more.

That's a different issue we can figure out later though. Let's focus on the problem at hand. You haven't really been answering my questions, please answer all questions I ask or I won't have enough information to help you.

Are you on NodeBB 1.18.3?

Is your forum available through the internet?

Have you tried using a different computer?

The very first time i set up nodebb i never had this issue at all. I have done same again...(this is 5th time to be sure) but this. Like i said all is fine on whole admin site apart from these two things. Freeze and Mail.

Yes
Yes
Yes

Sampo2910

I also noticed this.

When i use ./nodebb stop should i be able to see the webpage?

Because I can. Even if i clear browser cache etc i still see it. ?

i tried going in ./nodebb dev also and noticed a message - error: NodeBB address in use, exiting...

Is something using the address something happening twice ?

Sampo2910

This is output from ./nodebb log:

smiley@fmjcod4:~/nodebb$ ./nodebb log

Hit Ctrl-C to exit

Clustering enabled: Spinning up 1 process(es).

2021-09-26T18:50:07.298Z [4567/7357] - info: Initializing NodeBB v1.18.3 http://localhost:4567
2021-09-26T18:50:08.527Z [4567/7357] - info: [socket.io] Restricting access to origin: http://localhost
2021-09-26T18:50:08.748Z [4567/7357] - info: [plugins/spam-be-gone] Settings loaded
2021-09-26T18:50:08.766Z [4567/7357] - info: [api] Adding 0 route(s) to api/v3/plugins
2021-09-26T18:50:08.778Z [4567/7357] - info: [router] Routes added
2021-09-26T18:50:08.780Z [4567/7357] - info: NodeBB Ready
2021-09-26T18:50:08.781Z [4567/7357] - info: Enabling 'trust proxy'
2021-09-26T18:50:08.782Z [4567/7357] - info: NodeBB is now listening on: 0.0.0.0:4567

PitaJ

Your screenshot doesn't include this toggle:

Do you have it enabled as shown in the picture?

When i use ./nodebb stop should i be able to see the webpage?

No. You will need to use the command line to manually kill all node processes. Then you can ./nodebb start it back up.

gotwf

@sampo2910 Okay, from the screenshot posted above, you are relaying NodeBB email through a dedicated SMTP executable. If whatever that is, let us assume Postfix, the SMTPD (SMTP Daemon) should be logging attempted connections, typically to /var/log/maillog.

Presuming you have access to the box where that daemon is running, tail that puppy:

tail -f /var/log/maillog

Then repeat whatever you do in NodeBB to trigger the NodeBB log smtp connection refused error. Observe the tail'd smtp daemon log. It should provide more detailed insight as to why the connection is being rejected. If not, increase "verbosity" of the postfix sendmail daemon and reload the config. Iirc you can even do from command line temporarily w/o having to edit the conf file but I forget the command off the top of my head. I think man postconf should get you there.

Good luck o/

P.S.; The above is predicated on you having selected Custom and then obfuscating your actual config via the smtp.mail.com example in your screenshot above. If not, see @PitaJ comment above.

Sampo2910

@pitaj said in New Install - Plugin Page Freezes:

Your screenshot doesn't include this toggle:

Do you have it enabled as shown in the picture?

When i use ./nodebb stop should i be able to see the webpage?

No. You will need to use the command line to manually kill all node processes. Then you can ./nodebb start it back up.

OMG how stupid do I feel now with the mail 'problem'. It was off! I toggled to on and email success and it came through.

In my defence I was also thinking that needed to be on if i used Gmail,Yahoo i.e. external email server. Of course how you read it. Happy that that side of live is working.

Just this freezing problem on find plugins. I guess I have the main ones I need but maybe something else in there I would like also. But for now at least I can open up to registration etc with email working.

Sampo2910

I am not sure if this has anything to do with but..as I said before if i run ./nodebb stop then i can still see my forum and navigate etc even after this. This is not right or am I stopping it wrong? I have not set nodebb up as a service yet.

2021-09-27 15_19_27-Window.png

I tried ./nodebb dev after and i get this: Not sure if you can see so linked a notepad text of the full output here

Cant add files here.

2021-09-27 15_21_09-Window.png

PitaJ

@sampo2910 as I said, it looks like you have a rogue process. Sometimes one gets left behind and ./nodebb stop can't kill it. You'll need to manually kill it instead. It's easiest to kill all node processes. Then you'll be able to start it back up.

Sampo2910

@pitaj Even if I reboot the machine this 'rogue' process will start again? How can I prevent that ?

Best way to stop also please. I have one other application using node also.

Thanks for all the help so far.

PitaJ

@sampo2910

Even if I reboot the machine this 'rogue' process will start again? How can I prevent that ?

The only way this could happen is if you have a service set up or something. What OS are you on?

PitaJ

@sampo2910 said in New Install - Plugin Page Freezes:

OMG how stupid do I feel now with the mail 'problem'. It was off! I toggled to on and email success and it came through.

In my defence I was also thinking that needed to be on if i used Gmail,Yahoo i.e. external email server. Of course how you read it. Happy that that side of live is working.

It enables the SMTP transport. It's necessary no matter what service you choose, including a custom one.

dunlix

@sampo2910 if your on Ubuntu you could look in the resource monitor.
Also I didn’t read every post but if your hanged page problem is till a problem then start NodeBB using ./nodebb dev && ./nodebb log In the folder and send the logs here

Sampo2910

@dunlix said in New Install - Plugin Page Freezes:

@sampo2910 if your on Ubuntu you could look in the resource monitor.
Also I didn’t read every post but if your hanged page problem is till a problem then start NodeBB using ./nodebb dev && ./nodebb log In the folder and send the logs here

I am running Ubuntu 20.04

I cannot kill nodebb. I have tried with PID ./nodebb stop does not work and so when i try and use ./nodebb dev it tells me nodebb is already running. Here is the full log on Google Drive. I cannot attach anything here.

dunlix

@sampo2910 if your on Ubuntu try looking for NodeBB on the recourse monitor app and ending it manually like task manager on windows. That way you can kill the “rogue process” and not all node.JS things.
Stop NodeBB before ./nodebb dev because this just starts NodeBB in dev mode

gotwf

@sampo2910 Perhaps this may help?

man pkill

 pgrep, pkill - look up or signal processes based on name and other attributes....

Then you should be able to identify and kill all nodejs nodebb processes. You will likely want to send a SIGTERM, a.k.a. 15 numerically:

 kill -l
 1) SIGHUP       2) SIGINT       3) SIGQUIT      4) SIGILL       5) SIGTRAP
 6) SIGABRT      7) SIGBUS       8) SIGFPE       9) SIGKILL     10) SIGUSR1
11) SIGSEGV     12) SIGUSR2     13) SIGPIPE     14) SIGALRM     15) SIGTERM
16) SIGSTKFLT   17) SIGCHLD     18) SIGCONT     19) SIGSTOP     20) SIGTSTP
21) SIGTTIN     22) SIGTTOU     23) SIGURG      24) SIGXCPU     25) SIGXFSZ
26) SIGVTALRM   27) SIGPROF     28) SIGWINCH    29) SIGIO       30) SIGPWR
31) SIGSYS      34) SIGRTMIN    35) SIGRTMIN+1  36) SIGRTMIN+2  37) SIGRTMIN+3
38) SIGRTMIN+4  39) SIGRTMIN+5  40) SIGRTMIN+6  41) SIGRTMIN+7  42) SIGRTMIN+8
43) SIGRTMIN+9  44) SIGRTMIN+10 45) SIGRTMIN+11 46) SIGRTMIN+12 47) SIGRTMIN+13
48) SIGRTMIN+14 49) SIGRTMIN+15 50) SIGRTMAX-14 51) SIGRTMAX-13 52) SIGRTMAX-12
53) SIGRTMAX-11 54) SIGRTMAX-10 55) SIGRTMAX-9  56) SIGRTMAX-8  57) SIGRTMAX-7
58) SIGRTMAX-6  59) SIGRTMAX-5  60) SIGRTMAX-4  61) SIGRTMAX-3  62) SIGRTMAX-2
63) SIGRTMAX-1  64) SIGRTMAX

You should be able to do this as your nodebb user, i.e. nodebb process owner. Else of course doing so as root will also get the job done.

PitaJ

@sampo2910 please try killing all node processes as described in this thread:

Stop all instances of Node.js server

I have started a Node server through the plugin of an IDE. Unfortunately, I cannot use the IDE's terminal. So I tried to run the script from the command line. This is the problem - I am using the E...

Stack Overflow (stackoverflow.com)

And do so as root

Sampo2910

I tried using the system monitor to kill all node processes. These are the ones running and their path. But if i kill them all I can still see the webpage.

This is results of ./nodebb log:

smiley@fmjcod4:~/nodebb$ ./nodebb log
Hit Ctrl-C to exit

[cluster] Child Process (43554) has exited (code: null, signal: SIGKILL)
[cluster] Spinning up another process...
2021-09-27T22:00:56.577Z [4567/43574] - info: Initializing NodeBB v1.18.3 http://localhost:4567
2021-09-27T22:00:57.940Z [4567/43574] - info: [socket.io] Restricting access to origin: http://localhost
2021-09-27T22:00:58.166Z [4567/43574] - info: [plugins/spam-be-gone] Settings loaded
2021-09-27T22:00:58.184Z [4567/43574] - info: [api] Adding 0 route(s) to api/v3/plugins
2021-09-27T22:00:58.196Z [4567/43574] - info: [router] Routes added
2021-09-27T22:00:58.198Z [4567/43574] - info: NodeBB Ready
2021-09-27T22:00:58.199Z [4567/43574] - info: Enabling 'trust proxy'
2021-09-27T22:00:58.201Z [4567/43574] - info: NodeBB is now listening on: 0.0.0.0:4567

It is hard to know what the rogue process is?? What should i kill...?
Are their two instances running here or something? Am i on wrong port or something. No idea . Is it conflicting with another node app?

Sampo2910

If I end or kill any other process from system monitor it disappears from list.

Node just keeps reappearing in the list. Web page is still there etc.

Also nodebb is starting itself after I reboot the machine. So as a service? I never set that up. But.....I did do that a long time ago on another installation (or tried- it did not work)