What is happening?

Please do not stop the stack while we are initializing the database or do other preparations.

What is happening? - Nginx cannot connect to an upstream server or other services are not ready yet.
This is fine if mailcow was just installed or updated and can take a few minutes to complete.
Please check the logs or contact support if the error persists.

Quick debugging

Check Nginx and PHP logs:

docker compose logs --tail=200 php-fpm-mailcow nginx-mailcow

Make sure your SQL credentials in mailcow.conf (a link to .env) do fit your initialized SQL volume. If you see an access denied, you might have the wrong mailcow.conf:

source mailcow.conf ; docker compose exec mysql-mailcow mysql -u${DBUSER} -p${DBPASS} ${DBNAME}

In case of a previous failed installation, create a backup of your existing data, followed by removing all volumes and starting over (NEVER do this with a production system, it will remove ALL data):

BACKUP_LOCATION=/tmp/ ./helper-scripts/backup_and_restore.sh backup all
docker compose down --volumes ; docker compose up -d

Make sure your timezone is correct. Use "America/New_York" for example, do not use spaces. Check here for a list.


Click to learn more about getting support.