Thanks @yariplus. I moved the staticDirs to a new plugin.json, I added a package.json and the problem is now fixed.

Found the problem: Step 3 requires that the server accept HTTP POST - I was only accepting GET.

I have a forum with 2 levels of categories. When logged in as an admin all categories and sub-categories are visible, but when browsing as an anonymous guest, the sub-categories cannot be seen. NodeBB is v0.9.2.

I've checked the permissions on the sub-categories and they are set as follows. I've also tried resetting and setting the permissions back but no difference:

I checked the code and the children are definitely being filtered out due to permissions. If I comment out the following lines of code in /src/categories.js the sub-categories show.

244 function (children, next) {
245   privileges.categories.filterCids('find', children, uid, next);
246 },

I added the following to the UI to see if the .children array is empty and it is - "We have children" never shows to guests:

<p><!-- IF ../children.length -->We have children<!-- ENDIF ../children.length --></p>

Here's my full UI code. Nothing inside the second <ul> renders:

<!-- IMPORT partials/breadcrumbs.tpl -->
<h1 class="categories-title">[[pages:categories]]</h1>

<ul class="home-category-list categories" itemscope itemtype="http://www.schema.org/ItemList">

<!-- BEGIN categories -->

	<h2 class="title top-level-category">
		<!-- IMPORT partials/categories/link.tpl --><br />
		<div class="description">
		{../descriptionParsed}
		</div>
	</h2>

	<p><!-- IF ../children.length -->We have children<!-- ENDIF ../children.length --></p>

	<ul class="home-sub-category-list categories" itemscope itemtype="http://www.schema.org/ItemList">
		<!-- BEGIN children -->
		<!-- IMPORT partials/categories/item.tpl -->
		<!-- END children -->
	</ul>
	<div class="clearfix divider"></div>
<!-- END categories -->
</ul>

I see that https://community.nodebb.org/recent.rss currently returns:

Not Found
You seem to have stumbled upon a page that does not exist. Return to the home page.

Is that feature still available?

See also: RSS feed of the entire board?

Perfect, thank you!

I need to access process.env.NODE_ENV in the footer to see if my site is in production. I first tried creating a route for /api/footer and outputting {isProduction: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' } but the result wasn't accessible in the footer.

I've tried putting the value in /src/middleware/header.js but that unsurprisingly didn't work.

As I need it in every page in the site, I don't want to update all of the /api/* routes. Is there some other way to get this value in the footer?

BTW - The reason is need this is so that I can conditionally add the Google Tag Manager but only in the production environment so my code looks like:

<!-- IF isProduction -->
<google tag manager code>
<!-- ENDIF isProduction -->

My login page is (almost) entirely blank on my production server but works ok on dev and staging (heroku). I can see the home page and I can create an account and see the profile page, but I cannot login to an existing account:

There are no javascript errors in the browser and no errors in the server side log:

21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: NodeBB v0.9.2 Copyright (C) 2013-2014 NodeBB Inc.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info:
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Time: Mon Mar 21 2016 14:33:07 GMT-0500 (PET)
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Initializing NodeBB v0.9.2
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Environment: production
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: * using mongo store at xx.xx.xx.xx:xxxx
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: * using themes stored in: /var/www/blahblahblah/live/node_modules
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: [database] Checking database indices.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: Checking dependencies for outdated modules
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [notifications.init] Registering jobs.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/css] Minifying LESS/CSS
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [sounds] Sounds OK
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/templates] Compiling templates
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/templates] Successfully compiled templates.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/css] admin.css committed to disk.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/css] stylesheet.css committed to disk.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/js] Minification complete
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [hotswap] Router with id plugins replaced successfully
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [plugins] All plugins reloaded and rerouted
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [hotswap] Router with id auth replaced successfully
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/js] Client-side minfile committed to disk.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: NodeBB Ready
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Enabling 'trust proxy'
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: NodeBB is now listening on: 0.0.0.0:4567

My login page is (almost) entirely blank on my production server but works ok on dev and staging (heroku). I can see the home page and I can create an account and see the profile page, but I cannot login to an existing account:

There are no javascript errors in the browser and no errors in the server side log:

21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: NodeBB v0.9.2 Copyright (C) 2013-2014 NodeBB Inc.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info:
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Time: Mon Mar 21 2016 14:33:07 GMT-0500 (PET)
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Initializing NodeBB v0.9.2
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Environment: production
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: * using mongo store at xx.xx.xx.xx:xxxx
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: * using themes stored in: /var/www/blahblahblah/live/node_modules
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: [database] Checking database indices.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: Checking dependencies for outdated modules
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [notifications.init] Registering jobs.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/css] Minifying LESS/CSS
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [sounds] Sounds OK
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/templates] Compiling templates
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/templates] Successfully compiled templates.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/css] admin.css committed to disk.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/css] stylesheet.css committed to disk.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/js] Minification complete
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [hotswap] Router with id plugins replaced successfully
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [plugins] All plugins reloaded and rerouted
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [hotswap] Router with id auth replaced successfully
21/3 14:33 [24540] - verbose: [meta/js] Client-side minfile committed to disk.
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: NodeBB Ready
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: Enabling 'trust proxy'
21/3 14:33 [24540] - info: NodeBB is now listening on: 0.0.0.0:4567

Found the answer - The script starting NodeBB must be in the nodebb directory otherwise the minifier will fail as above. Changed my Upstart script as follows:

cd $LIVE_DIR
exec node app.js >> /var/log/blahblahblah/nodebb.log

It's failing on this line in /src/meta/js.js:

var minifier = Meta.js.minifierProc = fork('minifier.js', [], forkProcessParams),

Are there some special permissions or configuration I need to setup to allow a process to be forked?

I've tried running node with each of the following command lines, both giving similar results:

exec node $LIVE_DIR/loader.js --no-silent --no-daemon >> /var/log/blahblahblah/nodebb.log
exec node $LIVE_DIR/app.js >> /var/log/blahblahblah/nodebb.log

I'm seeing the following error when starting NodeBB on my production server:

module.js:340
    throw err;
          ^
Error: Cannot find module '/minifier.js'
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:338:15)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:280:25)
at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
at startup (node.js:119:16)
at node.js:935:3

The same code runs correctly on dev and our staging server (Heroku). We are running on Ubuntu and NodeBB is being started by Upstart. As far as I can tell the minifer code is in place - this is the file on the prod server:

1623 Mar 21 12:39 minifier.js

I've run npm install in the nodebb folder and everything is up to date. Here is the verbose log from NodeBB:

21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: NodeBB v0.9.2 Copyright (C) 2013-2014 NodeBB Inc.
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: 
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: Time: Mon Mar 21 2016 13:12:54 GMT-0500 (PET)
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: Initializing NodeBB v0.9.2
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: Environment: production
21/3 13:12 [24179] - verbose: * using mongo store at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx
21/3 13:12 [24179] - verbose: * using themes stored in: /var/www/blahblahblah/node_modules
21/3 13:12 [24179] - info: [database] Checking database indices.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: Checking dependencies for outdated modules
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [notifications.init] Registering jobs.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/css] Minifying LESS/CSS
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [sounds] Sounds OK
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/templates] Compiling templates
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/templates] Successfully compiled templates.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/css] admin.css committed to disk.
21/3 13:13 [24179] - verbose: [meta/css] stylesheet.css committed to disk.

The log always stops at this point. It seems to be the case that the following line in webserver.js fails:

async.apply(!skipJS ? meta.js.minify : meta.js.getFromFile, app.enabled('minification')),

The user running nodeBB has write permission to the /public folder where the nodebb.min.js will be created.

Interestingly, if I manually add the nodebb.min.js to the /public folder, hack that line to force meta.js.getFromFIle, NodeBB starts but the login page is blank apart from the header and there are no JS script errors.

The wiki link seems to be broken - are there instructions somewhere else now?