Cannot read property 'config' of undefined

[phenomlab]

I’ve seen plenty of useless error messages over my career in IT, but this one really takes the p…

After recovering my Ghost blog, I was met with the below error

sudonix@vps:~/domains/content.sudonix.com/public_html$ ghost start
✔ Checking system Node.js version - found v14.18.1
ℹ Ensuring user is not logged in as ghost user [skipped]
ℹ Checking if logged in user is directory owner [skipped]
✔ Checking current folder permissions
✔ Validating config
✔ Checking memory availability
✔ Checking binary dependencies
✖ Starting Ghost: content-sudonix-com
A GhostError occurred.
 
Message: Ghost was able to start, but errored during boot with: Cannot read property 'config' of undefined
 
Debug Information:
    OS: Ubuntu, v20.04.3 LTS
    Node Version: v14.18.1
    Ghost Version: 4.22.4
    Ghost-CLI Version: 1.18.0
    Environment: production
    Command: 'ghost start'
 
Additional log info available in: /home/sudonix/.ghost/logs/ghost-cli-debug-2021-11-22T11_29_19_297Z.log
 
Try running ghost doctor to check your system for known issues.

Now let’s be 100% transparent here. This error message means nothing to nobody, isn’t documented anywhere on the Ghost forums, and is as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

I was ready to throw in the towel and choose another platform, then it suddenly dawned on me that I’m not using the default Casper theme, but Leibling, which of course, is missing. I downloaded this, and extracted it to the themes directory, and lo and behold…

sudonix@vps:~/domains/content.sudonix.com/public_html$ ghost start
✔ Checking system Node.js version - found v14.18.1
ℹ Ensuring user is not logged in as ghost user [skipped]
ℹ Checking if logged in user is directory owner [skipped]
✔ Checking current folder permissions
✔ Validating config
✔ Checking memory availability
✔ Checking binary dependencies
✔ Starting Ghost: content-sudonix-com
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Your admin interface is located at:
 
    https://content.sudonix.com/ghost/
 
sudonix@vps:~/domains/content.sudonix.com/public_html$

Something to bear in mind in case you run across the same issue.

Shame on for not being more specific around the true origin of this error.