Troubleshooting¶

DO NOT Manipulate the Mattermost Database¶

• Do not manipulate the database directly. Mattermost is designed to stop working if data integrity is compromised.
• Any manipulation of the database must be done using the built in command-line tools

Lost System Administrator account¶

• To reset the account, run from the command line: ./platform -assign_role -team_name="yourteam" -email="you@example.com" -role="system_admin".
• Log out and back in for the change to apply.

Switching System Administrator Account to SSO Sign-in¶

When Mattermost is initially set up, the first account created becomes the System Administrator account. This account will typically use email authentication to sign-in, since it is usually created before other sign-in methods are configured.

After setting up SSO authentication, it is common for the System Administrator to want to turn off email sign-in so users will only have SSO as a sign-in option.

Before doing this, the System Administrator needs to change their sign-in method to SSO by doing the following:

1. Sign in to Mattermost using email and password
2. Go to Account Settings > Security > Sign-in Method
3. Click the “Switch” button for the sign in method you would like to use, and complete the process for switching sign-in method.

The System Administrator can now turn off email sign-in and still access their account. (To avoid locking other existing users out of their accounts, it is recommended the System Administrator ask them to switch authentication methods as well.)

Locked out of System Administrator account¶

If email sign-in was turned off before the System Administrator switched sign-in methods, sign up for a new account and promote it to System Administrator from the command line.

Please check connection, Mattermost unreachable. If issue persists, ask administrator to check WebSocket port.¶

• Message appears in blue bar on team site.
• To check the websocket connection, open the developer console in your browser and view the Network panel. If the websocket is not connecting properly, you will see a pending websocket connection show up in the list. The screenshot below shows an example from Chrome.

• If this issue is reported repeatedly, the most likely cause is a proxy being misconfigured somewhere in your infrastructure, and possibly stripping headers off of WebSocket communications.
• Mattermost clients connect to the server using multiple protocols, https to enable general site functionality, and wss for real-time updates. This error message appears when the https connection is working, but the wss connection has issues, most commonly having headers stripped off by a firewall or proxy that is either misconfigure or which does not support secure WebSockets.

Note: If your https connection is working and wss is not, and you dismiss the blue bar message, your team site will render, but will not support real time communications (you will need to refresh to see updates and the system is effectively “broken”).

Solution:

1. Follow the installation guide to set up your WebSocket port properly.
2. Speak with the owner of any other proxies between your device and the Mattermost server to ensure wss connections are passing through without issue.

If this issue is reported rarely, in some cases the issue comes from intermittent internet connectivity, where the initial load works, but the device then becomes disconnected from the internet and real time updates over the wss connection fail repeatedly and the error is displayed to check if the wss connection were misconfigured.

If only a small number of users have this issue, it could be from intermittent internet access, if almost every user has this issue, it’s likely from a misconfiguration of the wss connection.

x509: certificate signed by unknown authority¶

This error may appear in server logs when attempting to sign-up when using self-signed certificates to setup SSL, which is not yet supported by Mattermost.

Solution: Set up a load balancer like NGINX per production install guide. The core team is looking into allowing self-signed certificates in the future.

As a work around, in System Console > Security > Connections set Enable Insecure Outgoing Connections to true.

This will allow insecure TLS connections, but be careful in doing so as it also opens your Mattermost site to man-in-the-middle attacks.

panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference¶

This error can occur if you have manually manipulated the Mattermost database, typically with deletions. Mattermost is designed to serve as a searchable archive, and manual manipulation of the database elements compromises integrity and may prevent upgrade.

Solution: Restore from database backup created prior to manual database updates, or reinstall the system.

We couldn't find an existing account matching your email address for this team. This team may require an invite from the team owner to join.¶

This error appears when a user tries to sign in, and Mattermost can’t find an account matching the credentials they entered.

Solution:

1. If you’re signing in with email and have previously created an account:

Check that you are using the correct email address. If you can’t remember what email address was used, contact the System Administrator for assistance.

2. If you haven’t signed up for an account on this team yet:

Click the link at the bottom of the sign-in page that says “Don’t have an account? Create one now” to create an account. If the link is not available, contact a Team or System Administrator for an invitation.

3. If your account uses a different sign-in method (for example, the account was created with email but the user is trying to use SSO to sign in):

   • Check the sign-in page.

   • If the sign-in method the account was created with is available, use that to sign in.

     • Note: You may then switch authentication methods from Account Settings > Security > Sign-in Method.

   • If the sign-in method is not available, contact the System Administrator.

     • This can happen if the site was originally set up to allow an account to be created using either GitLab or Email, but then the System Administrator turned one of the options off.
     • The System Administrator can fix this issue by:
       1. Turning the sign-in option back on.
       2. Asking the user to switch sign-in methods before turning the sign-in option back off.