Billionmail/BillionMail · error

environment file not found:

Error message

environment file not found: 

What it means

DockerEnv in core/internal/service/public/common.go reads an environment variable from the Docker .env file located at AbsPath(consts.DEFAULT_DOCKER_ENV_FILE). If that file does not exist on disk it returns "environment file not found: <path>". This means the deployment's .env file is missing from the expected location, not that the specific env var is missing.

Source

Thrown at core/internal/service/public/common.go:2407

		g.Log().Error(context.Background(), "ReloadFirewall error: ", err, " ", s)
		return
	}

	return
}

// DockerApiFromCtx Get Docker API from context
func DockerApiFromCtx(ctx context.Context) *docker.DockerAPI {
	return ctx.Value(consts.DEFAULT_DOCKER_CLIENT_CTX_KEY).(*docker.DockerAPI)
}

// DockerEnv get Docker Environment Configuration
func DockerEnv(envName string) (envVal string, err error) {
	// Read environment from ../.env
	envFile := AbsPath(consts.DEFAULT_DOCKER_ENV_FILE)

	if !FileExists(envFile) {
		err = errors.New("environment file not found: " + envFile)
		return
	}

	// Read each lines
	err = ReadEach(envFile, func(row string, cnt int) bool {
		// Trim whitespace
		row = strings.TrimSpace(row)

		// Ingore empty line
		if row == "" {
			return true
		}

		// Ingore comment line
		if strings.HasPrefix(row, "#") {
			return true
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to fc36c76c05)

Solutions

1. Create the .env file at the resolved path (copy .env.example to .env and fill values).
2. Verify the working directory: print the path from the error message and check it exists with ls.
3. If running outside Docker, mount or symlink the .env file into the expected location.
4. Alternatively set the variable in the actual OS environment and adjust code to prefer os.LookupEnv with file fallback.

Example fix

// before
val, err := public.DockerEnv("SMTP_HOST") // environment file not found: /opt/app/.env
// after
cp .env.example /opt/app/.env  # then
val, err := public.DockerEnv("SMTP_HOST")

envFile := public.AbsPath(consts.DEFAULT_DOCKER_ENV_FILE)
if !public.FileExists(envFile) {
    return fmt.Errorf(".env missing at %s: copy .env.example first", envFile)
}
val, err := public.DockerEnv("SOME_VAR")

val, err := public.DockerEnv(name)
if err != nil {
    if strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "environment file not found:") {
        log.Printf("%v — falling back to OS env", err)
        val = os.Getenv(name)
        return val, nil
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling DockerEnv("SOME_VAR") when ../.env (relative to the binary, via AbsPath) was never created, was deleted, or the process is running from a different working directory so AbsPath resolves to a wrong/nonexistent path.

Common situations: Running the app outside the standard Docker Compose layout (bare-metal dev run), fresh checkout without copying .env.example to .env, container started without the .env volume mounted, or changed install directory.

Related errors

• failed to update BILLIONMAIL_HOSTNAME in .env file: %v
• Failed to get configuration
• supplier configuration not found
• failed to create Docker client: %v
• failed to update postfix master config: %v

AI-assisted analysis of Billionmail/BillionMail@fc36c76c05 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/083ad47acf61fdb4. Report an issue: GitHub.