@pitaj yep that was it, turns out the Bitnami Stack displays a different version that I is actually running and isn't updatable. had to build a server from scratch turned out to be a good thing in the end.

So I'm running into several issues, ill list and describe them below, been at this for several days now and I am at the end of my ability to figure it out myself.

--1--

I attempt to install via gitclone as instructed, and the setup falils when it attempts to run NPM install

package.json not found.
Populating package.json...
OK
Dependencies outdated or not yet installed.
Installing them now...

npm ERR! code ERESOLVE
npm ERR! ERESOLVE unable to resolve dependency tree
npm ERR!
npm ERR! While resolving: [email protected]
npm ERR! Found: [email protected]
npm ERR! node_modules/nodebb-plugin-emoji
npm ERR! nodebb-plugin-emoji@"^3.3.0" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Could not resolve dependency:
npm ERR! peer nodebb-plugin-emoji@"^2.0.0" from [email protected]
npm ERR! node_modules/nodebb-plugin-emoji-android
npm ERR! nodebb-plugin-emoji-android@"2.0.0" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Fix the upstream dependency conflict, or retry
npm ERR! this command with --force, or --legacy-peer-deps
npm ERR! to accept an incorrect (and potentially broken) dependency resolution.
npm ERR!
npm ERR! See /home/bitnami/.npm/eresolve-report.txt for a full report.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /home/bitnami/.npm/_logs/2021-09-17T03_46_01_701Z-debug.log
Error installing dependencies!
message: Command failed: npm install --production
stdout: null
stderr: null
/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/nodebb/src/cli/package-install.js:81
throw e;
^

Error: Command failed: npm install --production
at checkExecSyncError (child_process.js:635:11)
at Object.execSync (child_process.js:671:15)
at Object.installAll (/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/nodebb/src/cli/package-install.js:72:9)
at Object.<anonymous> (/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/nodebb/src/cli/index.js:62:18)
at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:999:30)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1027:10)
at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:863:32)
at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:708:14)
at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:887:19)
at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:74:18) {
status: 1,
signal: null,
output: [ null, null, null ],
pid: 30390,
stdout: null,
stderr: null
}

--2--

I attempt to instal via nom package manager the nessisary files are downloaded separately and the installation files are needed to be manually copied into the NodeBB nom folder ignorer to complete installation within a second node_modules folder.

<missing default theme>

after I make this change and run setup I get lathe way through it and it won't start because the log folder is missing

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/node_modules/nodebb/logs/output.log'
Emitted 'error' event on LogStream instance at:
at WriteStream.<anonymous> (/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/node_modules/logrotate-stream/index.js:37:48)
at WriteStream.emit (events.js:314:20)
at internal/fs/streams.js:361:12
at FSReqCallback.oncomplete (fs.js:156:23) {
errno: -2,
code: 'ENOENT',
syscall: 'open',
path: '/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/node_modules/nodebb/logs/output.log'
}

I add the log and startup encounters another error

child_process.js:435
throw new ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE('options.cwd', 'string', options.cwd);
^

TypeError [ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE]: The "options.cwd" property must be of type string. Received function wrappedCwd
at normalizeSpawnArguments (child_process.js:435:11)
at Object.spawn (child_process.js:547:16)
at Function.module.exports.daemon (/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/node_modules/daemon/index.js:50:31)
at module.exports (/opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/node_modules/daemon/index.js:25:20)
at /opt/bitnami/projects/ioaebb/node_modules/nodebb/loader.js:207:21
at FSReqCallback.oncomplete (fs.js:156:23) {
code: 'ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE'
}

I don't know what I'm missing at this point