diff --git a/build.sh b/build.sh
index 3f96cf5..622248d 100755
--- a/build.sh
+++ b/build.sh
@@ -18,16 +18,17 @@ mdate(){
 #server-specific checks to enable stripping suffixes ONLY on system html path, on tilde.cafe
 if [ "$(hostname --fqdn)" = "tilde.cafe" ] && [ "$(readlink -f "$dir"|head -c 4)" = "/var" ];then
   no_ext=1
+  #if on webroot, try to ignore any discrepancies and use upstream
+  echo "updating repo"
+  git stash;git stash clear
+  git pull
+  git submodule update --remote --rebase --single-branch  --recommend-shallow
 else
   no_ext=0
 fi
 
 TZ=UTC date
 
-echo "updating repo"
-git pull
-git submodule update --remote --rebase --single-branch  --recommend-shallow
-
 echo "generating site"
 #. in reference to src/
 for path in . ./wiki;do