GitHub Pages: Valid remote theme not recognized: Minimal Mistakes

[edgriebel]

Description

I'm having a problem using minimal mistakes as a remote theme. When deploying to GitHub pages, the error email says "The minimal-mistakes theme is not currently supported." but the theme is #1 on the list of remote themes [1] so I don't understand why I'm getting this error message.

Environment

• Minimal Mistakes version: master and 4.14.1
• Ruby gem or remote theme version: 2.7.6
• Jekyll version: 3.7.4
• Git repository URL: https://github.com/edgriebel/edgriebel.github.io
• Operating system: Linux/GitHub
• GitHub Pages hosted (if yes provide URL to site): http://edgriebel.com

Expected behavior

Push to GitHub repo should rebuild and deploy jekyll site with new mmistakes theme

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Instead, when I push to GitHub I get an error email

The page build failed for the master branch with the following error:

The minimal-mistakes theme is not currently supported on GitHub Pages. For more information, see https://help.github.com/articles/adding-a-jekyll-theme-to-your-github-pages-site/.

I believe I have tried "everything" to get this working but it still doesn't work. Note that this runs fine locally for me on Linux (e.g. "bundle install; bundle exec jekyll serve"). I'm moving this from an existing GitHub theme if that makes a difference too.

What I've tried

I've followed the recommendations in the theme's quickstart [2], and also in GitHub's page to use a remote theme [3]. I've tried a number of things to fix this problem including stripping out all but essential gems from Gemfile and ensuring the url: matches my url, and trying the remote_theme: with and without fixing the version listed in the theme's quickstart. My Gemfile is here[4] and _config.yml is here[5].

I've looked at #1685 and #1339 and I don't think they apply.

I'm not asking to debug my _config.yml file (like, "Why does my text have a brown background?"), if it does look like that's the problem then I apologize in advance.

[1] https://github.com/topics/jekyll-theme
[2] https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/docs/quick-start-guide/
[3] https://blog.github.com/2017-11-29-use-any-theme-with-github-pages/
[4] https://github.com/edgriebel/edgriebel.github.io/blob/master/Gemfile
[5] https://github.com/edgriebel/edgriebel.github.io/blob/master/_config.yml

[mmistakes]

Everything looks correct to me. The only reason GitHub Pages would give you that error about MM not being supported is if you had it declared under theme: in your _config.yml (which you do not), or if you included the MM theme gem in Gemfile (which you also are not doing).

I do see you've commented those lines out though. Is it possible you received that error before and since correcting it things are fine? Nothing else is jumping out to me as being incorrect in your setup.

[mmistakes]

For comparison this is the _config.yml and Gemfile I'm using for the demo site that is hosted on GitHub Pages using MM as a remote_theme.

[edgriebel]

I've taken a look at these, they were very helpful when I was porting to the new theme. I've had the `theme:` and Gem commented out a while ago, I'll do a push again to force a redeploy just to make sure. Thanks, -ed

…

On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 4:14 PM Michael Rose ***@***.***> wrote: For comparison this is the _config.yml <https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes/blob/master/docs/_config.yml> and Gemfile <https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes/blob/master/docs/Gemfile> I'm using for the demo site that is hosted on GitHub Pages using MM as a remote_theme. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1992 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAMjxuKbz-j6au_Xj2Ld92L336XdjXQ1ks5u2DcsgaJpZM4ZFCR1> .

[edgriebel]

Pushed it and got the same error, is the next step GitHub support or is there something else you can think of?

[mmistakes]

Yeah I'm out of ideas. I cloned your repo and built it locally just fine. You're using the GitHub Pages gem which is suppose to emulate the GH Pages environment and flag any errors for you.

bundle exec jekyll serve
Configuration file: E:/Users/Michael.Rose/Desktop/edgriebel.github.io-master/edgriebel.github.io-master/_config.yml

 Incremental build: disabled. Enable with --incremental
      Generating...
      Remote Theme: Using theme mmistakes/minimal-mistakes
                    done in 13.889 seconds.
  Please add the following to your Gemfile to avoid polling for changes:
    gem 'wdm', '>= 0.1.0' if Gem.win_platform?
 Auto-regeneration: enabled for 'E:/Users/Michael.Rose/Desktop/edgriebel.github.io-master/edgriebel.github.io-master'
    Server address: http://127.0.0.1:4000
  Server running... press ctrl-c to stop.

Everything looks as it should and how I typically see things go when using remote themes. I can only assume there's something in your repo that GH is picking up where it thinks you're trying to use a gem based theme that isn't whitelisted.

When remote theme is working correctly it just downloads the theme files directly from my repo and uses those to build the site. It's not doing any sort of dependency installs like the gem based stuff.

[edgriebel]

I've send an email to support@github.com. I'll update when I get a response. Thanks for your help!

[Script-Nomad]

Just dropping this in here to mention that I am also now experiencing this issue. My theme is currently falling back to my previous theme after upgrading to minimal mistakes. Github-Pages shows that it no longer supports "mmistakes/minimal-mistakes" in the commit history, which does not make sense because I can build it locally just fine. I can also see several example sites which import minimal mistakes with a near-identical _config.yml file as myself that are having no trouble using the remote theme. I suspect this is a github pages issue, but it's uncertain at this point. My site is at https://github.com/true-demon/truedemon.github.io for reference

[edgriebel]

FYI my issue is still outstanding. Haven't received many suggestions from GH support. I think I may have to just copy the default _config.yml and then make customize it, testing each customization in case something breaks it.

[mmistakes]

@edgriebel I’d take a close look at your _config.yml file. You might have some bad YAML that is tripping up GH pages during the build. For example you have repository listed twice. That shouldn’t matter but who knows.

That and all the theme configs you have commented out might be confusing something.

[samba]

I seem to have run into this too. A few related discoveries, but referring to other themes:

1. Someone tried to reproduce the problem with a minimal site.
2. Possibly it's related to the github entry in _config.yml
3. Also confirmed github property is the trigger in another project.

[mmistakes]

Looks like the presence of a github key in _config.yml is the culprit. Explains why the MM docs site and some of my remote theme test repos work fine... neither have github: entries.

As a test @edgriebel, I’d try removing these lines. If it builds on GH-Pages then the bug seems legit and upstream related to either the github-pages gem or jekyll-remote-theme.

[edgriebel]

That was it! Thanks so much for the help, it works now!