I am observing similar issue after upgrading to NodeBB package version 2.14.x.
Among error logs I am seeing are "ERR!" logs about not being able to resolve the nodebb-plugin-emoji plugins, and the application being "not responding."
Had to downgrade to NodeBB package version 2.13.4 to resolve the error and get the application back up and running.
Funny thing is, if I "upgrade" only to package version 2.14.0, I get only "WARN" logs about not being able to resolve the nodebb-plugin-emoji plugins, and the application will eventually get up and run. But if I take one more step to upgrade to 2.14.1, then the "ERR!" logs come back and the application will be stuck "not responding" again. Downgrading from 2.14.1 back to 2.14.0 did not help -- I get the same "ERR!" logs as mentioned above and the application remains "not responding." I have to downgrade back to 2.13.4 to get out of this hole.
For now, I will disable auto-update and hope that smarter people figure this out and put out a revised NodeBB 2.14.x package that won't have the same or similar issue. (Not really sure how this works ... if 2.14.0 and 2.14.1 really have issues, I'm hoping they will be removed such that auto-update will skip over them and move on to a working update when one becomes available.)