Comprehensive Troubleshooting Guide for Deploying Hugo Websites on GitHub #

This guide is designed to help students who have completed Homeworks 1 and 2 and are now deploying their final project landing page using Hugo and GitHub Pages. It covers common issues that may arise during the deployment process and provides step-by-step instructions to troubleshoot and resolve these problems. By following this guide and leveraging the knowledge gained from the previous homeworks, you should be able to successfully deploy your Hugo website on GitHub.

Step 1: Understand the Problem #

• Inspect the deployed webpage using the browser’s Developer Tools (right-click -> Inspect), similar to how you targeted specific elements when building your landing page in HW1 Part IV Step 2.
• Check the Console for any error messages.
• Look at the Sources tab to see where broken assets (images, CSS, etc.) are trying to load from.
• Compare the broken asset URLs to your site’s actual URL structure.

Example: If an image is showing up broken like https://yourname.github.io/missingimage.png, check the static/ folder in your Hugo project to ensure the image file exists at the expected path.

Step 2: Check the Latest Deployment #

• Navigate to your GitHub repository’s Actions tab, which you learned about in HW2 Part I.
• Find the most recent deployment workflow run.
• Check the timestamp to see when the site was last built and deployed.
• Compare this to when you made your latest changes.

Example: If you see the last successful deployment was at 2pm, but you made changes at 3pm, then your latest updates have not been deployed yet.

Step 3: Review Your Configuration #

• Open your site’s config.toml file, which you edited in HW1 Part IV Step 1.
• Verify the baseURL is set correctly, matching your GitHub Pages URL (https://<username>.github.io/<repository>/).
  • Ensure you are not confusing the repository URL with the GitHub Pages URL.
• Check that the theme is specified correctly.

Example config.toml:

baseURL = 'https://janedoe.github.io/my-hugo-site/' 
title = 'My Hugo Site'
theme = 'hugo-theme-name'

Step 4(manual): Manual Deployment using publish_to_gh_pages.sh Script #

If you are using the provided publish_to_gh_pages.sh shell script for manual deployment, follow these steps:

1. Ensure you have the script file in your project directory.
2. Open a terminal and navigate to your project directory.
3. Run the script with the appropriate arguments:

   ./publish_to_gh_pages.sh <content_folder> <github_username/repo>
   

   Replace <content_folder> with the path to the folder containing your generated static site files (e.g., public), and <github_username/repo> with your GitHub username and repository name (e.g., janedoe/my-hugo-site).

Example:

./publish_to_gh_pages.sh public janedoe/my-hugo-site

The script will clone the gh-pages branch of your repository (creating it if it doesn’t exist), sync the contents of your specified folder with the branch, commit the changes, and push the updates to GitHub.

Note: The manual deployment script is a temporary solution to help you deploy your site until you set up automated deployment using GitHub Actions.

Step 4(automatic): Automated Deployment using GitHub Actions #

If you have configured continuous deployment using GitHub Actions, as covered in HW2 Part II, then the deployment process is automated.

1. Whenever you push changes to the main branch of your repository, the GitHub Actions workflow defined in .github/workflows/gh-pages-deployment.yaml will be triggered automatically.
2. The workflow will checkout your repository, build your Hugo site, and deploy the generated files to the gh-pages branch.
3. GitHub Pages will then automatically serve the updated site from the gh-pages branch.

To check if you have automated deployment set up:

1. Look for a .github/workflows directory in your repository with a gh-pages-deployment.yaml (or similarly named) file.
2. Check the “Actions” tab in your GitHub repository. If you see a “Build and Deploy” (or similarly named) workflow listed, then automated deployment is configured.

Example .github/workflows/gh-pages-deployment.yaml:

name: GitHub Pages Deployment
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: peaceiris/actions-hugo@v2
        with:
          hugo-version: '0.101.0'
          extended: true
      - name: Build
        run: hugo --minify
      - name: Deploy
        uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3
        with:
          github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          publish_dir: ./public

The key difference between manual and automated deployment is:

• Manual deployment requires you to run the publish_to_gh_pages.sh script whenever you want to update your site.
• Automated deployment, once set up, will automatically build and deploy your site whenever you push changes to the main branch.

Automated deployment is preferred as it saves time and ensures your site is always up to date with the latest changes in your repository. The manual deployment script is a fallback option if you haven’t set up GitHub Actions yet.

Step 5: Clear Browser Cache #

• After a new deployment, do a hard refresh in your browser to clear the cache (Ctrl+Shift+R or Cmd+Shift+R).
• This ensures you are seeing the latest deployed version instead of a stale cached version.

Additional Hugo Troubleshooting Tips #

• Run hugo server locally to preview your changes and debug issues before deploying, as you practiced in HW1 Part III.
• Ensure your Hugo version meets the minimum required version specified in config.toml.
• Delete the public/ and resources/ directories before running a new build to start fresh.

By methodically working through these steps and leveraging your experience from the Hugo and GitHub Actions homeworks, you can usually pinpoint and resolve common Hugo deployment issues. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you encounter any other stumbling blocks!