I give up!!!

[airdogvan]

Maybe I'm the only one in my case, not a professional dev. Your update path creates too many problems for me each time I need to do so.
Your script syncs what looks like the whole repository, replaces (after warning) the docker-compose file.
This file is complicated, with numerous dependencies, and seems to assume that we're going to run Bookwyrm alone on the machine. I'm might be wrong, but guessing that many others are in my situation, numerous services already running behind reverse proxy.
This makes figuring out what to keep and what to discard/modify in my docker-compose file a nightmare every time.

Maybe one HUGE improvement would be to make available a compose file that doesn't assume it has to provide the proxy.

Very sorry, I'm losing about 40 books updated on that site, which is extremely bad for me.

Of course I have absolutely no business telling you how you should run your project. Just a wish: make the compose file much simpler, otherwise I strongly suspect the running instances of Bookwyrm are going to dwindle.

[ilkka-ollakka]

Hi,

Sorry to hear that you have problems with updating bookwyrm.

By default, we have tried to make docker-compose file so, that it wouldn't need any modification by default. Only check few items in .env file should be enough.

We are also working on to be able to release container images, so hopefully some point in future you could just check docker-compose.yml updates and pull new version of images without needing to checkout the repository otherwise.

If you have multiple other services in same host, you can set NGINX_SETUP=reverse_proxy in .env and PORT to something where you want to bookwyrm to be contacted by your local reverse proxy. That allows you to use your local reverse proxy without needing to configure anything extra inside docker-compose file or other settings.

Not sure if any of this helps you, but if you reply on issues you faced, we can learn from it and update our documentation/instructions accordingly.

[airdogvan]

First, sorry if my post sounded a tad aggressive. This was not my intention at all, but still definitively not called for.
Second, thank you for answering so quickly.

Maybe you could issue 2 different compose files? One with the included nginx proxy, another for those who already run a reverse proxy?

For my case, I would greatly appreciate if you could paste here a revised compose file. The only thing I need is the port# the front end listens on. I would need the complete compose file as I haven't updated in a good while and there have been many changes since.

My first post was more an expression of despair at having lost so much data that is precious to me, but that's the risk that comes with using software in dev, which I knew very well. In reality, I think you guys are doing an incredible job and am nevertheless extremely grateful.

[ilkka-ollakka]

Hi,

Good to hear from you. We currently use nginx for caching and integrating things like flower access and anubis to handle bot/scraping traffic. Having nginx between your reverse proxy and bookwyrm shouldn't cause big overhead or compatibility issues that I'm aware of.

So if you add 'NGINX_SETUP=reverse_proxy' and 'PORT=8082' to .env file where docker-compose.yml is, and run docker compose up, it should listen port 8082 as http traffic and only that without certificates and you can connect your existing reverse proxy to that port.

Hope that is suitable configuration for your use?

[airdogvan]

I add PORT=8082 to .env and that's it? Do I leave nginx: image: nginx:1.28.1 restart: unless-stopped ports: - "${PORT:-80}:80" - "${PORT:-443:443}" as is? I wouldn't think so but might be wrong. I also noticed in your files a docker-compose-upgrade-db.yml, Since I haven't updated in a while, I imagine I would need to run this? Maybe I'm being very fussy, but this doesn't look to me as straightforward as you seem to make it sound...

[ilkka-ollakka]

If you are in earlier than 0.8.0 version, you should check https://github.com/bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm/releases/tag/v0.8.0 when to use that upgrade-db compose file.

You should add NGINX_SETUP=reverse_proxy also in .env file, but you shouldn't need to touch anything inside docker-compose.yml file.

[airdogvan]

after docker compose up:

db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:46.716 UTC [1] LOG:  starting PostgreSQL 17.7 (Debian 17.7-3.pgdg13+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 14.2.0-19) 14.2.0, 64-bit
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:46.716 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on IPv4 address "0.0.0.0", port 5432
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:46.716 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on IPv6 address "::", port 5432
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:46.720 UTC [1] LOG:  listening on Unix socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:46.725 UTC [29] LOG:  database system was shut down at 2026-02-18 19:55:32 UTC
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:46.733 UTC [1] LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:56.735 UTC [40] WARNING:  database "fedireads" has a collation version mismatch
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:56.735 UTC [40] DETAIL:  The database was created using collation version 2.36, but the operating system provides version 2.41.
db-1              | 2026-02-18 19:55:56.735 UTC [40] HINT:  Rebuild all objects in this database that use the default collation and run ALTER DATABASE fedireads REFRESH COLLATION VERSION, or build PostgreSQL with the right library version.
web-1             | **** Checking needed migrations
web-1             | python: can't open file '/app/manage.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
web-1             | failed to migrate

[ilkka-ollakka]

Thanks for the logs, I think I forgot to mention that update also needs the './bw-dev build' command before update so the container dependencies and others are up-to-date.

[airdogvan]

sorry again for the trouble. So I did ./bw-dev update, then ./bw-dev upgrade_db_version (that seemed to work fine), then docker compose up which brought the error mentioned above to which you reminded me to ./bw-dev build. Which of course I did (it ran without errors).
But now with docker compose up I again get:

[+] Running 5/5
 ✔ Container bookwyrm-redis_activity-1  Running                                                                                                                     0.0s 
 ✔ Container bookwyrm-db-1              Running                                                                                                                     0.0s 
 ✔ Container bookwyrm-redis_broker-1    Running                                                                                                                     0.0s 
 ✔ Container bookwyrm-anubis-1          Running                                                                                                                     0.0s 
 ✔ Container bookwyrm-web-1             Created                                                                                                                     0.0s 
Attaching to anubis-1, celery_beat-1, celery_worker-1, certbot-1, db-1, flower-1, nginx-1, redis_activity-1, redis_broker-1, web-1
web-1             | **** Checking needed migrations
web-1             | python: can't open file '/app/manage.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
web-1             | failed to migrate
web-1 exited with code 1

[ilkka-ollakka]

No worries for troubling, great that you have patience trying to resolve the issue with me :)

That outputs looks littlebit tricky, but I'm sure we can figure out the issue and get the bookwyrm things back on track for you.

That output seems to indicate that some mount is not in place in docker-compose file, what does git show -s command outputs for you? It most likely outputs something like this:

commit b83396ef6e78486b112c942a1796370438df7b4f (HEAD -> production, origin/production)
Merge: 7d6de8cb8 d650317e7
Author: Mouse Reeve <mouse.reeve@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon Feb 2 14:03:20 2026 -0800

    Merge branch 'main' into production

Also does command git diff docker-compose.yml show any output? It shows if there is differences between repository docker-compose file and the local file you have.

Those outputs might give me some ideas how we can next try to resolve the issue.

[airdogvan]

Many thanks for your patience. I did have different mappings. In general I prefer to map volumes to the home folder of the stack. I remaped everything to their original state, except pgdata and backups (I don't think that would cause the error).

Also, the diff is not comparing to the docker-compose.yml you have on the site. The ngnix version is different and at the end there are differences that might well cause the error:

@@ -136,7 +125,6 @@ services:
       start_period: 2s
       retries: 6
     volumes:
-      - .:/app
       - static_volume:/app/static
       - media_volume:/app/images
       - exports_volume:/app/exports
@@ -161,7 +149,6 @@ services:
       retries: 6
       start_period: 2s
     volumes:
-      - .:/app
       - static_volume:/app/static
       - media_volume:/app/images
       - exports_volume:/app/exports
@@ -180,7 +167,6 @@ services:
       start_period: 2s
     env_file: .env
     volumes:
-      - .:/app
       - static_volume:/app/static

The error is still the same:
web-1 | python: can't open file '/app/manage.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory

The git show -s displayed something very similar to your example output, the date is the same.

[ilkka-ollakka]

those .:/app should be in place for that version release, so mounting bookwyrm-repository base-directory to /app inside the container. v0.8.5 has been just tagged as pre-release, where this is no longer necessary. So if you do ./bw-dev update again, does it work better?

[airdogvan]

Thank you for your dedication.  Very much, once more, appreciated.  The stack is now up.  I have issues with my reverse proxy.  Let me try to figure this out.  I will let you know. Feb 21, 2026 12:37:50 p.m. Ilkka Ollakka 'notifications at github.com' ***@***.***>:

…

[Image]*ilkka-ollakka* left a comment (bookwyrm-social/bookwyrm#3840)[#3840 (comment)] those *.:/app* should be in place for that version release, so mounting bookwyrm-repository base-directory to /app inside the container. v0.8.5 has been just tagged as pre-release, where this is no longer necessary. So if you do ./bw-dev update again, does it work better? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub[#3840 (comment)], or unsubscribe[https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHRKLJ655LDVU6ZHMVIOQLD4NC6ZPAVCNFSM6AAAAACUQTSJBKVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTSMZZGQZDMOBYGM]. You are receiving this because you authored the thread. [Tracking image][https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AHRKLJ2LLLJCW7APWNL2GJ34NC6ZPA5CNFSM6AAAAACUQTSJBKWGG33NNVSW45C7OR4XAZNMJFZXG5LFINXW23LFNZ2KUY3PNVWWK3TUL5UWJTXKZ3REG.gif]

[airdogvan]

thank you, now the stack is up. I don't have enough words to express my gratitude for your patience!!

Now maybe you can help me with another issue? My db is empty. I do have backups, but not sure how to proceed since the postgres versions are not the same.

[ilkka-ollakka]

Great to hear that issue is progressing. For backups, those should be compatible to be restored ina same flow even if version has changed in db.

[airdogvan]

I would really LOVE to close this issue. Restored db, seems correctly populated, BUT I have a problem (that happened to me before): it doesn't recognize either the userid or the password. The userid is present in public.bookwyr_user and looks correct. I remember having this exact problem before, looked in the issues and my emails, can't find it. Again, I'm at your mercy...