Noted by Sameer:

I guess there is a write problem, the error as follows:

• OSError: The path to your Whoosh index '/home/ubuntu/appstore/appstore/whoosh_index' is not writable for the current user/group.

our search uses whoosh_index and that directory is not writable

and

It works when I change the permissions manually, we need to do that in the playbook.

To fix:

Modify the appstore playbooks (https://bitbucket.org/lorainelab/appstore-playbooksto) include a step that changes the group affiliation of the whoosh_index directory to "www-data".
During deployment, the cloned appstore files will all have user "ubuntu" and group "ubuntu," which is required for future updating of the clone.
The apache process (httpd) is owned by user and group www-data.
The ubuntu user is added to the group "www-data".
So if the whoosh index directory has group "www-data," then apache/httpd will be able to write to the directory and properly update the index when users submit apps or when the index is first used.

Note: The test site mentioned above has been properly configured manually. So this is why you will probably not observe the bug in action. Also, you will probably be unlikely to observe the bug on your local because local development deployments happen under the developers user id.

Looks like that folder is getting generated as part of migration steps in the playbooks or later. Not as a part of deployment. I am changing the whole /home/ubuntu/appstore/appstore/ affiliation to ubuntu:www-data
that should work too i think

Please Review : https://bitbucket.org/chesterdias/appstore-playbooks/commits/345e31a5b3acf53a4b830d40cb66cdadc85d0530

Please rebase on the latest master branch and resolve any conflicts that emerge.

Fixed