Nest.js web app will not start and not error log available

Heya, @benstirrup

That error usually isn’t your Nest app failing — it’s App Platform not being able to fetch the runtime logs for that component (so you lose the real clue about why it’s stuck/crashing).

First things I’d check in a production only case:

Make sure the component is actually starting and listening on the port the App Platform expects. In DO, the platform routes traffic to the port defined as PORT (or the port you configured). A super common “works in dev, dies in prod” is Nest listening on localhost instead of 0.0.0.0, or listening on a different port than $PORT.

Also, confirm the start command is correct for production. For Nest, this is usually node dist/main.js (or npm run start:prod), but only if your build step really outputs dist/ and you’re not missing runtime deps because you installed only dev deps.

If you’re using health checks, temporarily disable them or loosen the path/timeouts. A failing health check can cause the app to restart in a loop, and then the log fetch sometimes shows up as “unable to get deploy logs.

Practical debugging trick: redeploy with a “safe” start command just to prove the runtime can stream logs. For example, start a simple process that prints something every few seconds (or node -e "setInterval(()=>console.log('alive'),5000)"). If you still can’t get deploy logs, it’s likely platform/component-level (stuck rollout, log pipeline, or something about that specific prod app), not your code.

If it’s only happening on the production app, compare prod vs staging settings line-by-line: env vars, run command, instance size, region, VPC/DB attachments, and any private registry creds. One missing env var (DATABASE_URL, JWT secret, etc.) can make the container exit instantly.

If none of that helps, the fastest path is usually to open a support ticket with the App ID + component name and ask them to check the internal deploy event/log streaming for backend-production (because from your side, you’re blocked from seeing the real failure).

Hope that this helps!