Logs flooded with error, Ghost apparently running?

Developer help Self-hosting
1

Hi,

from the contents of my Ghost log files it looks like Ghost is constantly starting and shutting down again. Here’s a screenshot of the normal log:

IMG_0670
IMG_06702732×2048 983 KB

And here’s a screenshot of the error log:

IMG_0671
IMG_06712732×2048 959 KB

Here’s what ghost ls gives:

IMG_0672
IMG_06721975×491 125 KB

And here’s the output of ghost doctor:

IMG_0673
IMG_06731428×1113 297 KB

I’m running in a ProxMox LXC with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.

Here’s what netstat -tulpen says:

IMG_0674
IMG_06742089×668 249 KB

I see the port 2368 only once, associated with the node process.

When I stop Ghost with ghost stop both logs stop filling up and are silent. :man_shrugging:

What’s the problem here and how can I fix it? :flushed:
Any help much appreciated!
One result of this is that I can’t login anymore … :disappointed:

2

Is it possible you have two ghost installs, competing for the same port? That’s what it looks like…

3

How would I know? ghost ls is listing just one … :flushed:

4

Try this:
sudo ps waux | grep node | grep current

This provides a list of processes that are running, and then just shows the ones that contain ‘node’ and ‘current’, which should get us a list of running Ghost installs.
I’m particularly interest in the user identified (first column), and the pid (second column). Run it a couple times. Is the pid changing? A stable Ghost install is one line here, with a pid that doesn’t change. (Until you restart it.)

and

sudo lsof -i | grep 2368

This shows the process and user associated with whatever is bound to 2368. You should get one entry, and it should match the pid and user from the first command, not not be changing when rerun.

What does
systemctl list-units --type=service show? (add --state=active) if too spammy)
I’m wondering if systemd is trying to start Ghost twice, or two installs of Ghost…

5

Most fascinating, Cathy, there’s indeed “some” other node process running with port 2368 open, the user is ghost:

root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# netstat -tulpen
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State       User       Inode      PID/Program name
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.53:53           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      992        161470775  228/systemd-resolve
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      0          161470290  434/nginx: master p
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:443             0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      0          161470291  434/nginx: master p
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.54:53           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      992        161470777  228/systemd-resolve
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:33060         0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      107        161470134  269/mysqld
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:25            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      0          161470397  559/master
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      107        161471258  269/mysqld
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:2368          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      999        161471573  383/node
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      0          161469889  1/init
tcp6       0      0 :::80                   :::*                    LISTEN      0          161470292  434/nginx: master p
tcp6       0      0 ::1:25                  :::*                    LISTEN      0          161470398  559/master
udp        0      0 127.0.0.54:53           0.0.0.0:*                           992        161470776  228/systemd-resolve
udp        0      0 127.0.0.53:53           0.0.0.0:*                           992        161470774  228/systemd-resolve
udp        0      0 192.168.0.101:68        0.0.0.0:*                           998        161468125  102/systemd-network
root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# lsof -i | grep 2368
node        383           ghost   27u  IPv4 161471573      0t0  TCP localhost:2368 (LISTEN)
root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# ps auxwww | grep -i node
ghost        383  0.0  8.9 11582996 186824 ?     Sl   Jan10   0:29 /usr/bin/node current/index.js
root       31119  0.0  0.0   3528  1664 pts/3    S+   14:45   0:00 grep --color=auto -i node
root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# kill -9 383
root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# ps auxwww | grep -i node
ghost      31153  0.0  7.1 11468624 150744 ?     Rl   14:46   0:01 /usr/bin/node current/index.js
root       31171  0.0  0.0   3528  1664 pts/3    S+   14:46   0:00 grep --color=auto -i node
root@ghost:/var/www/ghost#

As you can see: after I killed it it stared again immediately.
However, ghost ls lists no running Ghost instance:

root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# su stefan
stefan@ghost:/var/www/ghost$ ghost ls

Love open source? We’re hiring JavaScript Engineers to work on Ghost full-time.
https://careers.ghost.org


+ sudo systemctl is-active ghost_192-168-0-101
? Sudo Password [hidden]
┌───────────────┬────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────┬──────┬─────────────────┐
│ Name          │ Location       │ Version │ Status  │ URL │ Port │ Process Manager │
├───────────────┼────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────┼──────┼─────────────────┤
│ 192-168-0-101 │ /var/www/ghost │ 5.105.0 │ stopped │ n/a │ n/a  │ n/a             │
└───────────────┴────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────┴──────┴─────────────────┘
stefan@ghost:/var/www/ghost$

The systemctl command lists a lot of active services, here’s the output filtered for “ghost”:

root@ghost:/var/www/ghost# systemctl list-units --type=service | grep -i ghost
  ghost_localhost.service                  loaded active running Ghost systemd service for blog: localhost
root@ghost:/var/www/ghost#

So, despite having stopped Ghost via ghost stop it’s still running?
When I reboot this LXContainer everything looks exactly like mentioned above, so after boot Ghost seems to start somehow.

Now I need a way to repair this … Any idea, @Cathy_Sarisky? :flushed: