# Generic "Page build failure"

**URL:** <https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/generic-page-build-failure/3640>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [November 25, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/generic-page-build-failure/3640 "2019-11-25T01:17:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dougbreaux](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/dougbreaux/32/4796_2.png) [@dougbreaux](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/dougbreaux)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/generic-page-build-failure/3640/1 "2019-11-25T01:17:42Z")

</div>

At some point my blog had a working theme. I tried to add a remote theme and it never worked, so I had removed the theme from my \_config.yml entirely. I just revisited to try to out themes again, but now I can’t get anything to build at all. I tried reducing the file to nothing, or gone entirely, or just with a theme added via the configurer, and all produce a generic error & email:

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

Page build failed. For more information, see https://help.github.com/en/github/working-with-github-pages/troubleshooting-jekyll-build-errors-for-github-pages-sites#troubleshooting-build-errors.

```

> **[dougbreaux/dougbreaux.github.io](https://github.com/dougbreaux/dougbreaux.github.io)**
>
> Contribute to dougbreaux/dougbreaux.github.io development by creating an account on GitHub.

  
I assume I corrupted something, but I have no idea what.

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**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:14am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/generic-page-build-failure/3640/2 "2019-11-25T04:14:46Z")

</div>

You have made a mistake with the `post_url` tag in this commit:

> <https://github.com/dougbreaux/dougbreaux.github.io/commit/afb70a74fbda007b7cd4814a3f8892a0f27a1944>

You should pass the entire base filename of the post not just the title slug.

```diff
- (See {% post_url springmvc-jsr303-websphere%}.)
+ (See {% post_url 2018-05-23-springmvc-jsr303-websphere %}.)

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dougbreaux](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/dougbreaux/32/4796_2.png) [@dougbreaux](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/dougbreaux)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 4:41am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/generic-page-build-failure/3640/3 "2019-11-25T04:41:10Z")

</div>

Thanks!

But, wow, that makes the entire build fail, and doesn’t even tell me why? Guess I should use regular hrefs instead of post\_url, eh?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\
**Post date:** [November 25, 2019, 7:46am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/generic-page-build-failure/3640/4 "2019-11-25T07:46:17Z")

</div>

`{% post_url ... %}` , `{% link ... %}` and `{% include ...%}` are designed to fail fast and output a message to the terminal. You would’ve seen a message in the terminal window if you built the site locally first.

Why GitHub Pages doesn’t include that message in their report and email is beyond my understanding.