Status: Resolved (switched to FreshRSS)
Date: 2026-05-27
Affected service: RSS feed reader

Miniflux container repeatedly crashed with dial tcp [::1]:5432: connect: connection refused despite configuring SQLite via DATABASE_URL. The container would restart in a loop.

docker logs miniflux --tail 10

Output showed:

level=INFO msg="The default value for DATABASE_URL is used"
dial tcp [::1]:5432: connect: connection refused

Miniflux was ignoring the DATABASE_URL environment variable and defaulting to PostgreSQL connection settings.

The official Miniflux Docker image is designed to work with PostgreSQL by default. SQLite support is poorly documented and the DATABASE_URL environment variable is not reliably honored in the Docker context. Multiple configuration attempts were made:

• DATABASE_URL=sqlite3:/data/miniflux.db?_journal_mode=WAL * DATABASE_URL=file:/data/miniflux.db
• Individual variables (DATABASE_CLIENT=sqlite, DATABASE_PATH=/data/miniflux.db)
• Config file mount at /etc/miniflux

All attempts resulted in Miniflux defaulting to PostgreSQL and failing to connect.

Switched to FreshRSS, which uses SQLite by default without requiring special configuration:

freshrss:
  image: freshrss/freshrss:latest
  container_name: freshrss
  restart: unless-stopped
  environment:
    - TZ=America/Vancouver
  volumes:
    - ./freshrss/data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data
    - ./freshrss/extensions:/var/www/FreshRSS/extensions
  networks:
    - cafe_net

FreshRSS runs on Apache and serves on port 80. Caddy routing updated:

@rss host rss.folk.zone
handle @rss {
    reverse_proxy freshrss:80
}

After deployment, complete setup at https://rss.folk.zone/i/:

1. Click Installation
2. Choose database type: SQLite (default path is correct)
3. Click Continue
4. Create admin account
5. Complete the wizard

• FreshRSS service page
• Troubleshooting Index
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