Troubleshooting
How to solve the most common issues with Briefer deployments.
This page covers the most common issues with Briefer deployments and how to solve them.
Please make sure to update Briefer to the latest version before starting to troubleshoot. We’re constantly improving the project and fixing bugs, so it’s possible that your issue has already been solved in newer versions.
In case you need assistance, please don’t feel shy to open an issue or send us an email at contact@briefer.cloud. We’re here to help.
Solving common issues
I can access the web application, but the sign-in is not working
I can access the web application, but the sign-in is not working
If you’re running Briefer in another machine, for example an external server, Raspbery Pi, etc - make sure you have enabled HTTPS for your current setup while accessing Briefer on port 3000.
In case you can’t enable HTTPS or just want to try it out over HTTP, you can run Briefer over HTTP by setting the ALLOW_HTTP environment variable to true:
Note that using ALLOW_HTTP will not set the session cookie as Secure, thus allowing you to sign in using HTTP. We don’t recommend using this option production.
Furthermore, if you’re using an older version of Briefer, you might need to delete older volumes which might contain conflicting data. You can do that by running:
I can't access the web application
I can't access the web application
If you’re not able to access the web application, Briefer is either not running or not exposed to the internet (or within your local network). The latter is the most common issue.
To check if Briefer is running, SSH into your server and run docker ps. You should see a container using the image briefercloud/briefer or briefercloud/briefer-web. If you don’t see it, Briefer is not running.
If Briefer is running, have a look at its logs and see if there are any errors. You can do that by running docker logs <container_id>, where <container_id> is the ID of the Briefer container.
Finally, make sure that you’ve exposed your server to the internet or your local network. You can do that by allowing traffic on port 3000 and creating the necessary DNS records to access the host. Finally, please ensure that the container’s port is bound to the host’s port (3000).
I can access the web application, but I can't run code
I can access the web application, but I can't run code
This problem is likely due to an issue with the WebSocket connection that Briefer uses to send code execution requests to the backend (and document edits).
If you’re using a reverse proxy, make sure that it’s configured to allow WebSocket connections. You can do that by adding the following configuration to your Nginx reverse proxy:
If you’re using a different reverse proxy, make sure to check its documentation for WebSocket configuration.
I can access the web application, but it can't talk to the API
I can access the web application, but it can't talk to the API
In this case, it’s likely that the web process is running, but the API is not.
If the API is running, have a look at its logs and see if there are any errors. You can do that by running docker logs <container_id>, where <container_id> is the ID of the API container or the monolithic Briefer container in case that’s what you’re using.
Check if it complains about any missing environment variables or if there’s any other straightforward error that you can solve.
If you can’t figure out what’s happening, please open an issue here.
I get a 500 error whenever I try to access Briefer
I get a 500 error whenever I try to access Briefer
This is likely an issue with encrypting and decrypting tokens. It usually happens when you have lingering data from a previous execution while having changed Briefer’s encryption keys.
To fix this issue, start by clearing your browser’s cookies and local storage. Then, try accessing Briefer again.
You can clear cookies and local storage exclusively for Briefer’s address by using the Application tab in Chrome’s DevTools.
If you still can’t access Briefer you may have to remove Briefer’s old docker volumes.
I'm having issues with my Postgres SSL settings
I'm having issues with my Postgres SSL settings
Briefer accepts the following environment variables to configure the SSL connection to your Postgres instance:
POSTGRES_SSL_DISABLED: Set this totrueto disable SSL.POSTGRES_SSL_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED(optional): Set this totrueto reject unauthorized (self-signed) SSL certificates.POSTGRES_SSL_CA: (optional): The path to the CA certificate file to validate the server certificate.
If you’re deploying Briefer using our Helm chart, you can set these values in the values.yaml file as api.env.postgresSslDisabled, api.env.postgresSslRejectUnauthorized, and api.env.postgresSslCa, respectively.
If you’re having issues with your Postgres SSL settings, make sure that you’ve set these environment variables correctly.
By default, Briefer’s connection will have the same SSL settings as using sslmode=prefer in a Postgres connection string.