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Troubleshooting Tobesee: Fixing the 10 Most Common Issues After Deployment

February 17, 2026

Solutions for the most frequent problems Tobesee users encounter — from build failures and API errors to content sync issues and performance problems

Troubleshooting Tobesee: Fixing the 10 Most Common Issues After Deployment

Every Tobesee installation eventually hits a snag. Maybe the build fails after an update, or content changes are not appearing on the live site, or the admin panel throws an error. This article covers the ten most common issues and their solutions, based on real problems reported by Tobesee users.

1. Build Fails with "Module not found"

Symptom: npm run build fails with an error like Module not found: Can't resolve './components/SomeComponent'

Cause: A file was renamed, moved, or deleted, but the import statement still references the old path. This can also happen after pulling updates from the Tobesee repository if there were structural changes.

Fix:

# Delete cached files and reinstall
rm -rf .next node_modules
npm install
npm run build

If the error persists, check the specific import path mentioned in the error message and verify the file exists at that location.

2. Content Changes Not Appearing on the Live Site

Symptom: You saved an article or resource in the admin panel, but the live site still shows the old content.

Cause: This is usually a caching issue. Vercel caches pages for performance, and the cache might not have been invalidated yet.

Fix:

  1. Wait 2-3 minutes — Vercel cache typically refreshes within this window
  2. Check the Vercel dashboard for deployment status — if a redeployment was triggered, wait for it to complete
  3. Hard refresh your browser with Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac)
  4. If using Cloudflare or another CDN, purge the cache manually

If content still does not appear, check your GitHub repository to verify the changes were actually committed.

3. "API rate limit exceeded" Error

Symptom: Pages fail to load with a GitHub API rate limit error, or the admin panel shows rate limit warnings.

Cause: GitHub limits API requests to 5,000 per hour for authenticated requests and 60 per hour for unauthenticated requests. If your token is missing or invalid, you are hitting the much lower unauthenticated limit.

Fix:

  1. Verify your GITHUB_TOKEN is set correctly in environment variables
  2. Test the token:
curl -H "Authorization: token YOUR_TOKEN" https://api.github.com/rate_limit
  1. If the token is valid but you are still hitting limits, your site may have unusually high traffic. Consider implementing more aggressive caching or using ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration) to reduce API calls.

4. Admin Panel Returns 401 Unauthorized

Symptom: You enter the correct password but get redirected back to the login page, or API calls from the admin panel return 401 errors.

Cause: The JWT token is invalid or expired. This commonly happens after changing the JWT_SECRET environment variable.

Fix:

  1. Clear all cookies for your site in the browser
  2. Try logging in again with your ACCESS_PASSWORD
  3. If it still fails, verify that ACCESS_PASSWORD and JWT_SECRET are set correctly on your hosting platform
  4. Redeploy the application after updating environment variables

5. "Repository not found" Error

Symptom: The site loads but shows no content, with "Repository not found" errors in the console or logs.

Cause: The GITHUB_OWNER or GITHUB_REPO environment variables do not match your actual repository.

Fix:

  1. Go to your GitHub repository and copy the owner and repo name from the URL: github.com/OWNER/REPO
  2. These values are case-sensitive — CoolCBQ is different from coolcbq
  3. Update the environment variables on your hosting platform
  4. Redeploy

6. Styles Look Broken or Missing

Symptom: The site loads but looks unstyled — no colors, no layout, raw HTML.

Cause: Tailwind CSS was not compiled correctly during the build, or the CSS file failed to load.

Fix:

  1. Run a clean build:
rm -rf .next
npm run build
  1. Check that tailwind.config.js includes the correct content paths:
module.exports = {
  content: [
    './src/**/*.{js,ts,jsx,tsx}',
  ],
  // ...
};
  1. Verify that globals.css includes the Tailwind directives:
@tailwind base;
@tailwind components;
@tailwind utilities;

7. Sitemap Returns 404 or Is Empty

Symptom: yoursite.com/sitemap.xml returns a 404 error or shows an empty sitemap.

Cause: The sitemap file (src/app/sitemap.ts) might have a syntax error, or it might not be fetching articles correctly.

Fix:

  1. Check src/app/sitemap.ts for syntax errors
  2. Verify that the sitemap function can access the GitHub API (check environment variables)
  3. Test locally by running npm run dev and visiting localhost:3000/sitemap.xml
  4. Make sure all static pages (about, contact, privacy, terms) are included in the sitemap

8. Images Not Loading

Symptom: Images referenced in articles show broken image icons.

Cause: Image URLs in Markdown might be incorrect, or the images might not be accessible from the deployed site.

Fix:

  1. Verify the image URL is correct and publicly accessible
  2. If hosting images in your GitHub repository, use the raw content URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OWNER/REPO/main/path/to/image.png
  3. For external images, ensure the hosting service allows hotlinking
  4. Consider using a dedicated image hosting service like Cloudinary or Imgur for reliability

9. Build Succeeds Locally but Fails on Vercel

Symptom: npm run build works on your machine, but the Vercel deployment fails.

Cause: Environment variables are missing on Vercel, or there is a Node.js version mismatch.

Fix:

  1. Check the Vercel build logs for the specific error message
  2. Verify all required environment variables are set in the Vercel dashboard
  3. Ensure the Node.js version on Vercel matches your local version. You can specify it in package.json:
{
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=18"
  }
}
  1. If the error is related to TypeScript, run npx tsc --noEmit locally to catch type errors before deploying

10. Slow Page Load Times

Symptom: Pages take more than 3 seconds to load, especially on mobile.

Cause: Multiple factors can contribute — unoptimized images, too many API calls, large JavaScript bundles, or missing caching.

Fix:

  1. Run Lighthouse: Open Chrome DevTools > Lighthouse tab > Generate report. This identifies specific performance issues.

  2. Optimize images: Compress images and use modern formats (WebP). Use Next.js <Image> component for automatic optimization.

  3. Enable ISR: For content pages, use Incremental Static Regeneration to serve cached pages:

export const revalidate = 60; // Revalidate every 60 seconds

  1. Check bundle size: Run npm run build and review the output. Pages over 200KB of JavaScript may need code splitting.

  2. Minimize external scripts: Each external script (analytics, ads, fonts) adds load time. Load non-critical scripts with strategy="lazyOnload".

General Debugging Tips

When you encounter an issue not listed above:

  1. Check the browser console — press F12 and look at the Console tab for JavaScript errors
  2. Check Vercel logs — the deployment logs show build-time errors, and the function logs show runtime errors
  3. Check GitHub — verify your repository content matches what you expect
  4. Test locally — reproduce the issue on your local development server where you have more debugging tools
  5. Search GitHub Issues — someone else may have encountered and solved the same problem

Summary

Most Tobesee issues fall into a few categories: environment variable misconfiguration, caching delays, GitHub API limits, and build errors. The fixes are usually straightforward — verify your configuration, clear caches, and rebuild. When in doubt, the combination of browser console, Vercel logs, and local testing will point you to the root cause.

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