Troubleshooting Technical Errors

Yesterday, my Indiekit docker failed to start on my Pi. I also couldn’t run npm audit fix despite reviewing and accepting npm approve-scripts --all.

As a beginner Node.js user, I am still very inexperienced. I tried removing the package.lock, node_modules/ and npm install from scratch but that didn’t fix it.

Maybe it is due to the Node version being pinned to version 22? Or was it the installation of sharp in the Dockerfile that caused it to break after updating the npm packages? I now have RUN npm ci --omit=optional --no-audit instead of RUN npm ci --include=optional --no-audit && npm install --platform=linux --arch=arm64 sharp.

In the end, I managed to fix it with the help of duck.ai (Claude Haiku 4.5) as I couldn’t work it out myself… but I am not sure what caused it.

Then, another failure came to my attention: a cron script that backs up all the content associated with Indiekit had been failing:

1git@codeberg.org: Permission denied (publickey).
2fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
3Please make sure you have the correct access rights
4and the repository exists.

It backs up the content store (Codeberg Git repo), media store (S3 bucket), and MongoDB database. I fixed the cron clone/fetch by forcing the mirror to use the HTTPS repo URL with an access token (and non-interactive Git). I updated the mirror’s origin to the HTTPS token URL, then ran git fetch from cron without SSH.

1# Force mirror to use HTTPS and not SSH
2if [ -d "$REPO_MIRROR/.git" ]; then
3 git -C "$REPO_MIRROR" remote set-url origin "$REPO_URL"
4fi
5
6# Non-interactive fetch
7git -C "$REPO_MIRROR" fetch origin

Oh, and a handy tool that helped me set the time for the cronjob was crontab.guru.

As much as I hate generative AI for all the slop; LLMs has aided me in solving technical backend difficulties such as these and I usually learn a thing or two during troubleshooting this way.

Homebrew Website Club: Eastern June 17 2026

Last Thursday, David (an IndieWeb regular) couldn’t make it due to an emergency. Luckily James, another regular, caught me before I went to bed the night before to tell me the technical details on how to host the remote Zoom meeting. It was a success; luckily no technical difficulties, and we had a good turnout with a good old chat about all things websites! (Thanks too, to Thomas, for being co-host!)

Some of the topics we went through:

• Blog data analytics and visualization tools
• Data capture workflows
• Webmention server for static sites
• WordPress classic vs block editor

If you want more details about what we chatted about, check the notes/minutes link at HWC: Eastern June 17 2026.

What Is Homebrew Website Club?

Homebrew Website Club (HWC) welcomes anyone who has even an inkling of curiosity about the IndieWeb or anything related to building a personal site. HWC events are every week, alternating between the Pacific and Eastern timezones on a Wednesday (or Thursday depending on timezone).

To see the upcoming events, check out the IndieWeb events page. I invite you to join, we welcome newcomers! There will be a zoom link on the event page around 15 minutes before the event starts.

My IndieWeb Experiences

I’ve been attending these remote IndieWeb meetups for nearly half a year and I’m really grateful for the volunteers who keep it going. Which is why I’m trying to step up and give back to the community whenever I can. I am trying to improve my moderating skills—thanks for putting up with me!

Everyone is really approachable and friendly, talented in their own way, and inspirational. If you’re reading this, curious, or have any questions about this community; please feel free to reach out to me or say hi on the main #indieweb chat channel—someone will reply! Read Join #indieweb Discussions to learn more about how discussions work.

A feature I didn’t know existed in VS Codium saved my day! I was working on a untracked Git file (the zensical.toml configuration file) and accidentally, the whole file was overwritten and ctrl+z didn’t work. I thought my config was lost for good!

Luckily there’s a thing called “Local History”:

• Open command palette
• Choose Local History: Find Entry to Restore
• Choose the file you want to recover
• Choose the latest entry to recover from
• Copy contents back to active file

I believe this is also accessible under Timeline View.

See the Release Notes for more information on this feature when it was first released.

digiKam MySQL Database Upgrade Woes

Ever since I left Adobe Lightroom in mid-2025, I’ve been using digiKam from KDE for digital asset management (DAM). I quite like using it to manage my extensive library of photographs (+100k images). But almost every time there’s a version upgrade, the internal MySQL database breaks.

Database Options

There are three database options for digiKam: SQLite, Internal MySQL, Remote MySQL. I have always chosen internal MySQL as apparently SQLite doesn’t do well for libraries over 100k photos. But I can never get MySQL to work seamlessly on the get-go and it breaks every single time when it’s time to upgrade either the database or digiKam itself.

Not Again

I upgraded to digiKam v9.2.0 yesterday, lo and behold, the database broke again. I tried everything I could (with limited database knowledge) but could not get it fixed like the previous three or four times. I made notes each time when I troubleshooted, but the fixes I wrote down didn’t work this time. Previous issues include UNIX socket problems and mariadb from Homebrew was conflicting; but I checked it all this time and could not get the database to upgrade successfully.

Trying SQLite

I have decided to give SQLite a try despite being over the 100k suggested limit. Write-ahead logging (WAL mode) is turned on and I’m now waiting for the new database to be built. It’s over two hours by now and it’s past the 50% mark.

Fingers crossed that this will be last time I waste time on the digiKam database.

Additional Links

• https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/2025-March/037085.html
• https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/digikam-users/2021-July/032479.html
• https://linuxvox.com/blog/what-is-the-correct-location-of-mysql-sock-file-on-linux/
• https://rt-wiki.bestpractical.com/wiki/MysqlSocketConfiguration
• https://discuss.pixls.us/t/uninstalled-and-re-installed-mariadb-digikam-cant-connect-to-re-installation/38813
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27918764/cannot-load-from-mysql-proc-the-table-is-probably-corrupted/30224954#30224954
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5376427/cant-connect-to-local-mysql-server-through-socket-var-mysql-mysql-sock-38
• https://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-shell/9.7/en/mysql-shell-connection-socket.html
• https://www.supertechcrew.com/improving-speed-digikam-using-mysql/

Regular expression (Regex) is a skill I wish I have a better grasp on; but I’m slowly learning! For example, I often find myself searching for a particular string pattern to replace it with something else. Today, I learnt how to search for this pattern (Markdown bullet points):

1. The start of a new line (^)
2. Dash (-)
3. Space (\s)
4. Alphabet following the space ([a-zA-Z])

Which makes the search string:

1^-\s([a-zA-Z])

The ( ) bracket around [a-zA-Z] is to capture the matching section and using it later as $1 for the first group, $2 for the second, etc.

My aim is to change the bullet points into Markdown checkboxes. The string to do that is:

1- [ ] $1

This changes the bullet to a checkbox and the captured group in the ( ) is replaced by the original.

Maybe there’s some plugin to do this in a click, but I enjoy learning things in real life scenarios.

Resources

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Guide/Regular_expressions
• https://www.rexegg.com/regex-quickstart.php

Maintaining My Own Brew Tap

No, not beer; but for Homebrew, the package manager which I have used for over five years…? I don’t know how I lived without it before!

I have decided to maintain my own tap for the first time because of the deprecations that will come into action later this year in around September 2026. These deprecations are for macOS software that has not signed or notarized (i.e. paid Apple) to meet the macOS Gatekeeper requirements. Issue #6482 gives more background information.

I’m not entirely sure if this is the right way to do this, so treat this as a personal tinkering log, not a guide per se.

Steps I’ve Taken

1. Since brew taps are just Git repos, I created one on Codeberg and copied all the ruby cask files that have the deprecation warning from the official Homebrew Cask, and removed the line # disable! date: "2026-09-01", because: :fails_gatekeeper_check.
2. Initialize the repo with the files in step 1, Casks/*.rb, and push to remote.
3. Since I’m not using GitHub, the following command is used to add a custom tap in the terminal: brew tap git-username/homebrew-name-of-your-tap https://codeberg.org/git-username/homebrew-name-of-your-tap.git
4. Brew will warn that this tap is not trusted. To trust a tap, run brew trust git-username/homebrew-name-of-your-tap.
5. Tell Homebrew to use the new tap as the source of the soon-to-be deprecated casks, e.g. run brew reinstall --cask git-username/homebrew-name-of-your-tap/cask-name. This will explicitly tell Homebrew to install the cask using the new tap instead of the official cask tap. Repeat for all casks with deprecated warning.
6. Once the cask is officially deprecated, running brew install --cask cask-name should pull the .rb file from your custom maintained tap without the explicit custom tap path.
7. Run brew tap to see a list of all installed taps and run brew doctor to check if the warning, Some installed casks are deprecated or disabled. You should find replacements for the following casks, is resolved after switching to the custom tap.

Manually Keeping Casks Updated

It’s now up to me to update the .rb files, so I’ve gathered the XML feeds of the release pages and turned on notifications in my feed reader. This will remind me to update the version number and sha256 manually, which will in turn update the tap with the latest cask details ready for tapping.

I’m using rssrssrssrss to combine the feeds into one:

1https://codeberg.org/librewolf/bsys6/releases.rss
2https://www.digikam.org/index.xml
3https://github.com/darktable-org/darktable/releases.atom
4https://github.com/Orama-Interactive/Pixelorama/releases.atom
5https://github.com/qmk/qmk_toolbox/releases.atom
6https://github.com/vial-kb/vial-gui/releases.atom

I have yet to try to calculate the sha256 but it should be relatively straightforward with curl. I’ll update this section when I get at least one cask updated this way.

Lastly, run the usual xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/software.app command to bypass macOS’s Gatekeeper. (A step can probably be added to the .rb file to do this automatically—but I am used to running this manually after upgrades so it doesn’t bother me too much.)

Resources

• Homebrew: How to Create and Maintain a Tap
• Homebrew: Deprecating, Disabling and Removing
• Creating Your First Homebrew Tap: A Complete Guide | Kristoffer
• Maintain your own Homebrew repository, with binary bottles | Jonathan Chang

Hong Kong Open Source Conference 2026

I’m attending an in-person event this weekend related to my one of my passions for the very first time; open source! Came across the HKOSCon on Mastodon via @sammyfung, the founder of Open Source Hong Kong.

I’m not sure what to expect but I’m excited! It’s held in an area of HK I’m not familiar with (which is always nice as I like to visit new areas).

Looking forward to the talks lined up; especially the one titled, WordPress, Hugo and Astro - pick the best open-source CMS, by Tony Tsui. It’s held in Cantonese so I have no clue if I can catch on because I don’t think I know any web dev terms in Cantonese! 😆 Should be a fun and eye-opening experience nonetheless.

Maybe I’ll get to meet some general tech enthusiasts like myself!

Tickets are free (on Eventbrite) but it’s this Saturday!

My WordPress Replacement: Zensical

In the last few days, I’ve been experimenting with a new SSG (Zensical) as a replacement for my secondary site that’s still running WordPress—the CMS I learnt to create my first website. Once the migration is over, I won’t have to manage a dynamic website any more. Hurray, static sites for the win!

Ever since I created BurgeonLab, I considered multiple times if previous blog content should be merged into this one—I still haven’t. Those posts were written long before I knew about the IndieWeb, when I was still discovering the world of blogging (and constantly pestered by SEO plugins while writing in the WP editor 🤮).

This migration is long-overdue as just seeing the WP admin dashboard is a burden to me, not to mention actually managing a dynamic website. By switching to Zensical, the barrier to actually write something is much lower; plus I get to be comfortable in my IDE and Markdown.

Justifying Another Site

In recent months, two friends asked if I wrote anything “understandable for the layman” and is less technical after I sent them to this site. I wish I could have pointed them somewhere that is well maintained and user-friendly to non-techies.

Despite the difference in mindset and the stage I’m in as a blogger while developing EclecticPassions; I think it deserves a revival and refresh for the purpose of using it as a general-audience site that shall not be littered with tech jargon! And also try out digital gardening.

Having only a single website identity feels somewhat limiting to me. I guess it’s just the way I am—there are many sides to me and I like to be able to express that via websites! Having a second site is also my excuse to use learn another CMS while keeping Hugo my main CMS of choice.

I look forward to sharing the live site soon!

I thought my secondary blog (with WordPress backend) wouldn’t auto-update, but I think I missed the setting on Hostinger. So sadly my site is now running the new 7.0 with AI features 🤮. I immediately added the disable AI features line to config.php.

I’ll be switching to a WordPress alternative later this year when my plan expires in a few months time; so it won’t be too long before I say goodbye to WP for good.

Some non-Hugo alternatives I am considering:

• ClassicPress with SemPress theme
• Astro
• Pelican
• A docs generator?
• A personal wiki?
• Or something completely different?!

Signing Git Commits

Getting a verified lock icon for my signed Git commits took longer than expected! It’s all set up now in the end via SSH keys (and not GPG keys).

GPG Didn’t Work

During my email migration from Tuta to Mailbox.org, I started getting the hang of the idea of GPG keys. So I tried to start using it to sign my Git commits but it didn’t work out in the end because I think these have to match:

• The GPG key’s UID
• The email on the hosted Git repository account (e.g. GitHub, Codeberg)
• The local git config --global user.email

As I’m using a different email for privacy purposes (spam prevention) in Git commits, it failed to verify on the new Codeberg repo. Creating a new SSH key pair just for signing commits worked in the end!

New Gist Repository

My new Gist repo is now up on Codeberg!

I’ve been meaning to get something like this started for a while. It’s where I will store and keep code snippets I share up-to-date, especially useful as a resource for code-heavy, how-to posts. Decided to use this in the meantime instead of a paste bin service like OpenGist.

Will be updating my blog posts in due course to include a link to this repo.

Resources

• OpenGist
• Git: Keeping your email safe in public repositories | Dev.to
• Ditching GPG/GnuPG by signing commits with SSH keys | Toby — This post is useful, recommend it if you’re also looking to use SSH instead of GPG keys for signing Git commits.
• [Git/GPG] Fix the “Inappropriate ioctl for device” Error when Signing GPG Keys | Oscar Chou — While trying to set up GPG for signing, this error came up gpg: signing failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device. This post provided the fix.