Media uploads fail with error message "input must not start with a slash when using prefixUrl"

[jayeless]

Hello! I've recently set up Indiekit 0.1.0 on Heroku, and while other types of posts are getting written to my testing repository just fine, photo posts are all consistently failing. I get an extremely long 500 internal server error, which gives me the HTML source code of the endpoint layout with the following error message in it:

<p><code>input</code> must not start with a slash when using <code>prefixUrl</code></p>

(I'm providing only that cos I think it's the only relevant part, but if you want any more of the output let me know.) I went and Googled that error and found it comes from this line of the "got" dependency.

I did a bit more digging and found that I could upload successfully through the built-in media endpoint using a tool like Micro-Media-Endpoint-Proxy that bypasses the "posting a post with your media" step. So, the problem seemed to be with the hand-off from the main endpoint to the media one, rather than a problem with the media endpoint itself.

I checked what happens in the Heroku console when I attempt to post a proper photo post, and can see that it gives me this:

2021-05-10T14:25:09.026651+00:00 app[web.1]: 2021-05-10T14:25:09.026Z indiekit:error Error: `input` must not start with a slash when using `prefixUrl`
2021-05-10T14:25:09.026665+00:00 app[web.1]:     at uploadMedia (file:///app/node_modules/@indiekit/endpoint-micropub/lib/media.js:34:13)
2021-05-10T14:25:09.026667+00:00 app[web.1]:     at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:93:5)
2021-05-10T14:25:09.026667+00:00 app[web.1]:     at async file:///app/node_modules/@indiekit/endpoint-micropub/lib/controllers/action.js:37:25

Unfortunately I'm a lot better at googling than I am at programming myself, and my attempts at working around the issue on my own endpoint have all failed miserably. (As in, I tried dropping the forward slash from mediaEndpoint's mountpath, and that changed nothing.) I was hoping that whenever you had some time, you could take a look and see how the problem could be fixed. Thank you very much – overall I'm really appreciative of how modular and useful Indiekit is!

[paulrobertlloyd]

Interesting. Can you share the config file you are using? That might give some clues to what’s going on. I think you might be on the right track… perhaps mediaEndpoint here is not in a format got likes:

indiekit/packages/endpoint-micropub/lib/media.js

Line 26 in 9530f56

upload = await got.post(mediaEndpoint, {

If you could share your endpoint URL too, that might help as well.

[jayeless]

Certainly I can. This is the contents of my config file at present:

import {Indiekit} from '@indiekit/indiekit';
import {HugoPreset} from './hugo-preset/index.js';
import {GithubStore} from '@indiekit/store-github';

// Create a new indiekit instance
const indiekit = new Indiekit();

// Configure GitHub content store
const github = new GithubStore({
  user: process.env.GITHUB_USER, // GitHub username
  repo: process.env.GITHUB_REPO, // repo to write to
  branch: process.env.GITHUB_BRANCH, // branch of that repo
  token: process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN // access token
});

// Will this work? Fingers crossed.
const hugo = new HugoPreset({});

// Configure post types
const postTypes = [{
  type: 'article',
  name: 'Article',
  post: {
    path: 'content/posts/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.md',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.html'
  },
  media: {
    path: 'static/images/{yyyy}/{MM}/{filename}',
    url: 'images/{yyyy}/{MM}/{filename}'
  }
}, {
  type: 'note',
  name: 'Note',
  post: {
    path: 'content/posts/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.md',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.html'
  }
}, {
  type: 'photo',
  name: 'Photo',
  post: {
    path: 'content/posts/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}/index.md',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.html'
  },
  media: {
    path: 'content/posts/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}/{filename}',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}/{filename}'
  }
}, {
  type: 'bookmark',
  name: 'Bookmark',
  post: {
    path: 'content/interactions/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.md',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.html'
  }
}, {
  type: 'like',
  name: 'Like',
  post: {
    path: 'content/interactions/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.md',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.html'
  }
}, {
  type: 'reply',
  name: 'Reply',
  post: {
    path: 'content/interactions/{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.md',
    url: '{yyyy}/{MM}/{slug}.html'
  }
}];

// Define post categories (not tags)
indiekit.set('publication.categories', ["Articles","Books","Film and TV","Food","Games","Internet","Languages","Life","News and Politics","Pets","Photos","Site Updates","Technology","Transport","Writing"]);

// Configure publication
indiekit.set('publication.me', process.env.PUBLICATION_URL); // what will be the site's homepage
indiekit.set('publication.timeZone', 'Australia/Melbourne');
indiekit.set('publication.preset', hugo);
indiekit.set('publication.postTypes', postTypes);
indiekit.set('publication.store', github);

// Create a MongoDB database to be able to edit/delete old posts
// indiekit.set('application.mongodbUrl', process.env.MONGODB_URL);

// Create a server
const server = indiekit.server();

// Export server
export default server;

And the URL of my Indiekit endpoint is https://jls-indiekit.herokuapp.com/ – the media endpoint should just be the built-in one.

Thanks for looking into this!

[paulrobertlloyd]

Sorry, another question; what client(s) are you using to post to your micropub endpoint with? Want to try and simulate what you are seeing, if I can. Thanks!

[paulrobertlloyd]

Actually, I can see this same result. I think it’s related to me removing a part of the codebase which created a fully resolved URL for the local media endpoint: 3025aa7

[paulrobertlloyd]

Just released v0.1.1 with what hopefully amounts to a fix. Let me know if you run into any issues.

Also… I’d be very keen to learn how you are using Hugo, and how Indiekit could potentially improve its support.

[jayeless]

Thank you, that seems to be working now!

And sure – I didn't want to flood you with loads of issues at once, but there are definitely a few Hugo-specific issues I've run into that I'd be happy to report.