So many problems with Ghost 2

[john10001]

I’ve had so many problems upgrading from Ghost 0 to Ghost 2 it is unbelievable.

Now that I finally have Ghost 2 installed I have issues with not being able to login to it despite using the same username and password that the tech people provided me with who upgraded it to Ghost 2 for me.

The error I now have is “Unknown error” when I try to logon.

All these problems have been ongoing for a month.

It shouldn’t be this hard and difficult to upgrade to the latest version of Ghost.

Wordpress seems to be so much easier to use, install, configure yourself.

I am about to throw in the towel if this cannot be fixed soon.

I think I might request to just go back to Ghost version 0 or I could quit it altogether and choose a different platform.

[dsecareanu]

Ghost 0.x is a very old, and unsupported version… The upgrade path should have been from 0.x to 1.x and then from 1.x to 2.x. You can find a lost of discussions on this topic on the forum.

[Hannah]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - we know and understand that the upgrade path from 0.x to 2.x was extremely challenging.

0.x is, by definition - beta software, not really ready for prime time yet, everyone running it was an early adopter. 1.x was our first officially production ready version and it was significantly different to 0.x, almost a completely different piece of software.

Those huge differences, where we took everything we learned from 0.x and applied them to build different foundation blocks, made for a really challenging upgrade just from 0.x to 1.x. Particularly around the introduction of Ghost-CLI which is the tool designed to make sure this pain isn’t felt again.

Maintaining all the pre 1.0 upgrade code wasn’t realistic for us, so we don’t have support for upgrading direct from 0.x to 2.x. We don’t intend to break upgrades like that again, everything after 1.x should always be fairly easily upgradable, especially if you use a default theme.

Of course WordPress is easier to install & upgrade - it’s 16 years old. You’re comparing that with upgrading the pre-production 0.x version of Ghost - there’s obviously no comparison.

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Back to the point of your site not working. Given the information you’ve provided there’s absolutely nothing anyone on this forum can do to help. It’s clearly been frustrating, but maybe whoever is trying to do your upgrade for you could reach out with technical details?

[john10001]

The version I am now on though is Ghost version 2 and I am still having issues.

I get an error message that doesn’t even allow me to logon. “Unknown error occurred” is the error message.

Tech Support are no help either. Below is their message to me which just repeats if I want to try another restore from a backup date which didn’t work last time. And then telling me to contact a certified developer. Wow! How much will that cost just for a simple blog. All I want to do is write.

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Thank you for your patience.

We have thoroughly reviewed the matter. However, no server-side or application error logs are generated when the error is reproduced attempting to log in to your admin area. Thus we were unable to investigate the issue further on.

We advise contacting a certified developer who can review this on their end and provide you with a proper resolution on how to resolve this issue.

Or we may restore your website from one of the available backups in cPanel -> JetBackup. As we can restore it from one of the following available backup dates:

[KranzKrone]

You should definitely consider to change your Hoster, because obviously they don’t know what to do either.

@john10001 Maybe a fully managed hosting of Ghost would be better suited for you?

[dsecareanu]

If your blog is not that complex you might be better of trying to install a clean and updated Ghost and move your content with copy/paste (I know it is tedious, but sometimes it works best like that).

Otherwise you could try the 0.x to 1.x upgrade and from there it should be easier.

Anyways, if you’re hosting in a shared environment that’s another non supported ecosystem as you need a VPS for Ghost 2.x to make use of the ghost-cli.

There were some people on the forum helping with these kind of updates (or was it Wordpress to Ghost migrations, not sure), maybe someone will pitch in to help you as well.

You can also go for the Ghost Pro and the Ghost team will help you migrate as well, I assume.

[chrislesage]

Hi John,

I didn’t understand if you are trying to log in to the desktop app or the website. Are both failing?

Sorry I didn’t write down exactly what I did, but I was having the same problem with the desktop app. I had to go into my application library and delete existing ghost preferences, and then I was able to log in again. I was getting that same Unknown Error.

On Macos it was under ~/Library/Application Support/ghost-desktop
I think I just deleted the entire folder. Again sorry to not be more specific.

[john10001]

@KranzKrone
Believe me I am considering changing host.

The one I am with is supposed to be managed but they are not very good.

Unfortunately the Ghost Pro costs $29. My current service is $4.

I have been researching to see what other hosts offer Ghost 2 with private domain and have good technical support if anything goes wrong. I don’t mind paying slightly more.

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@dsecareanu
That is not a bad idea.

I may just go back to version zero, delete the theme and try going back to 1 and then 2 but I have a feeling that the same thing will happen again and I will get an error message even without a theme or with a default one so maybe I should just ask them to delete it completely and just do a clean install of Ghost 2 and then I manually add any posts back or just start from scratch.

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At: chrislesage
I’m not sure what the desktop app is? I didn’t know there was an application you could use.

I was just trying to log in to the admin area of ghost with the username and password the host provided me with when they upgraded to Ghost 2. For some reason I am not able to any more and I get the error message “Unknown error” when I try to logon to my own blog.

I was able to login right after they did the upgrade but now I am not able to but I’ve not made any changes.

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This is the most recent communication with my hosting provider:

Me to them:

We are going around in circles.

I have not made any changes to the site only you have.

I have not touched it.

I have only logged in once after you upgraded it to Ghost 2 on 27th March.

Please try restoring to 9th April.

We have tried this previously and it did not work.

It is not acceptable that I am unable to login the the Ghost blog with the details that you provided me with after you upgraded it.

The upgrade was done on 27th March.

You gave me the username and password when you did the upgrades.

I have not changed anything so I do not understand how I can now no longer login with the same details that you provided me with?

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Their reply:

Thank you for the update.

Please note that I have reviewed the ticket and found that during the upgrade from version 1 to 2 there were errors in the theme as it was not compatible with the current version.

Note that this might be related to the issue you are currently experiencing as once we have installed the previous Ghost version the website was working correctly.

Furthermore, note that as part of our procedures we do create a manual backup of your application before we attempt to upgrade is as such there is a backup before the upgrade performed on 27th of March that we can restore and use the previous version of the Ghost application.

Please note that if you like to proceed with the restoration of the website and everything is successful we will recommend that the next upgrade attempt it will be done by a Certified Web Developer as the procedure of upgrading might damage the website as it currently did and a developer will be able to review and assist you with the current issue.

If you like to use Ghost version 2 I will recommend currently to contact a Certified Web Developer to assist you and use the current version of the website.

Please update us via this ticket how we should proceed.
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It seems like they are offering to restore me to Version 1.

[KranzKrone]

@john10001 the kinda tricky Thing about “managed” Hosting for GHOST is, there are many “managed Hosting” Plans from a variety of Companys out there and just a few of them offer “node.js” in the Package. I searched A LOT for these special managed Hosting for GHOST and only found nearly a handful of it.

I personally found cadabra.blog and became a Customer, sticked with it since then because I don’t want the whole “managing a server/vps in the Background” anymore and for 5€/Month it’s perfect!

GHOST with Node.js is still a Niche in some Way, that’s good and bad at the same Time and it’s definitely a Opportunity for Evolution of Blogging in the Future.