Rails - Apr 2006 - Dealing with Application error (Rails) in production

Hi all,

Week 2 working with Ruby on Rails... I have a working app in development 
that is now throwing a generic, "Application error (Rails)" message in
production.

How do I deal with this so I can find more information about why the 
error is being thrown in production, but not in development?

Thanks!

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Look in the log file, I presume.

Kent.

On 4/3/06, Dan Croak <dancroak@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Week 2 working with Ruby on Rails... I have a working app in development
> that is now throwing a generic, "Application error (Rails)"
message in
> production.
>
> How do I deal with this so I can find more information about why the
> error is being thrown in production, but not in development?
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>


--
Kent
---
http://www.datanoise.com
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Dan Croak wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Week 2 working with Ruby on Rails... I have a working app in development 
> that is now throwing a generic, "Application error (Rails)"
message in
> production.
> 
> How do I deal with this so I can find more information about why the 
> error is being thrown in production, but not in development?
> 
> Thanks!
You''re not saying whether you only changed the environment or also the 
web server.  In the first case try looking in production.log. In the 
second case you can also try your webserver''s error log and any
relevant
log like the fcgi crash log.

have a look at these pieces of advise, they mention some of the gotchas 
- some may not apply to your setup:
http://ocsforums.com/showthread.php?t=276
http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/Gotcha
http://www.michaelbuffington.com/archives/2006/01/rails_troublesh.html
http://typo.in/

--
Agnieszka

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Kent Sibilev wrote:
> Look in the log file, I presume.
> 
> Kent.
Thanks, Kent.  I looked in the production.log file and found this 
particular error:

Errno::EPIPE (Broken pipe)

Any idea what that is about?

I started seeing the error when I switched over from Apache to a 
lighttpd web server .

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Agnieszka Figiel wrote:
> 
> You''re not saying whether you only changed the environment or also
the
> web server.  In the first case try looking in production.log. In the 
> second case you can also try your webserver''s error log and any
relevant
> log like the fcgi crash log.
> 
> have a look at these pieces of advise, they mention some of the gotchas 
> - some may not apply to your setup:
> http://ocsforums.com/showthread.php?t=276
> http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/Gotcha
> http://www.michaelbuffington.com/archives/2006/01/rails_troublesh.html
> http://typo.in/
> 
> --
> Agnieszka
Agnieszka,

Thank you for your response.  I looked at the sites you provided and it 
seemed like that information was relevant to the "Rails application 
failed to start properly" error.

I may have been unclear, but my application is running.  The home page 
is merely a single text field and submit button.  When a user enters 
their email address and hits "Submit," their information is recorded 
into the database.

The error I am seeing is "Application error (Rails)" when I try to log
into the password-protected administrative section of the web site.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Dan Croak wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Week 2 working with Ruby on Rails... I have a working app in development 
> that is now throwing a generic, "Application error (Rails)"
message in
> production.
> 
> How do I deal with this so I can find more information about why the 
> error is being thrown in production, but not in development?
> 
> Thanks!
Have you modified your database and migrated the changes on your 
production server?

If you add a database field locally and refer to it in your code, you 
can get these errors on your production server if the database schema 
isn''t up to date.

Jeff

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Dan Croak wrote:
> Kent Sibilev wrote:
>> Look in the log file, I presume.
>> 
>> Kent.
> 
> Thanks, Kent.  I looked in the production.log file and found this 
> particular error:
> 
> Errno::EPIPE (Broken pipe)
> 
> Any idea what that is about?
> 
> I started seeing the error when I switched over from Apache to a 
> lighttpd web server .
If you look at the unreleased changelog for Lighttpd, it shows that it 
fixes a fastcgi problem.  The unreleased fixes in Lighttpd also include 
connections not getting closed on certain errors, and memory leaks.

Try compiling the Lighttpd version in the repository, or wait until 
1.4.12 is released.  Or use Apache 2.0.55 with mod_fcgid-1.08 (not 
mod_fastcgi!).

You can see the changesets at

http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/timeline?changeset=on&update=Update

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

I''m only posting this so the next person who has this error will see
it...
Whenever you see this error, modify your database.yml file so that your
development and production databases are the same and then launch your app
with WEBrick in Development mode. This will rule out your Rails app as the
problem so you can then look at the OS / webserver / database.


On 4/3/06, Peter Gibbons <pgibbons@initech.lan>
wrote:
>
> Dan Croak wrote:
> > Kent Sibilev wrote:
> >> Look in the log file, I presume.
> >>
> >> Kent.
> >
> > Thanks, Kent.  I looked in the production.log file and found this
> > particular error:
> >
> > Errno::EPIPE (Broken pipe)
> >
> > Any idea what that is about?
> >
> > I started seeing the error when I switched over from Apache to a
> > lighttpd web server .
>
> If you look at the unreleased changelog for Lighttpd, it shows that it
> fixes a fastcgi problem.  The unreleased fixes in Lighttpd also include
> connections not getting closed on certain errors, and memory leaks.
>
> Try compiling the Lighttpd version in the repository, or wait until
> 1.4.12 is released.  Or use Apache 2.0.55 with mod_fcgid-1.08 (not
> mod_fastcgi!).
>
> You can see the changesets at
>
> http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/timeline?changeset=on&update=Update
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
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Jeff Coleman wrote:
> Have you modified your database and migrated the changes on your 
> production server?
> 
> If you add a database field locally and refer to it in your code, you 
> can get these errors on your production server if the database schema 
> isn''t up to date.
> 
> Jeff
Hi Jeff,

I created the database table by hand using TextDrive''s (my web hosting 
company''s) web-based MySQL admin tool.  The only thing that is
different
about the table versus the development version as far as I can tell is 
the password column.  On dev, it is of type char(40), whereas on 
production, the web-based tool forces the column to be of type 
varchar(40).

Could that be causing the problem?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Peter Gibbons wrote:
> If you look at the unreleased changelog for Lighttpd, it shows that it 
> fixes a fastcgi problem.  The unreleased fixes in Lighttpd also include 
> connections not getting closed on certain errors, and memory leaks.
> 
> Try compiling the Lighttpd version in the repository, or wait until 
> 1.4.12 is released.  Or use Apache 2.0.55 with mod_fcgid-1.08 (not 
> mod_fastcgi!).
> 
> You can see the changesets at
> 
> http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/timeline?changeset=on&update=Update
Peter,

Thanks for the response.  Fiddling with lighttpd scares the hell out of 
me right now and that solution is way over my head.  I passed it along 
to my web hosting company in case there is something they need to know 
there.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Brian Hogan wrote:
> I''m only posting this so the next person who has this error will
see
> it...
> Whenever you see this error, modify your database.yml file so that your
> development and production databases are the same and then launch your 
> app
> with WEBrick in Development mode. This will rule out your Rails app as 
> the
> problem so you can then look at the OS / webserver / database.
Hi Brian,

Are you saying to change the database information for development in the 
database.yml to point to the production database?  I''m not sure that my
web hosting company is going to let me connect in that way...

Can''t I just turn the default Rails error messaging to give me full dev
errors somewhere?  (temporarily of course while I track down the 
problem)  Or will my web host not allow me to do that, either?

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

You could do that as well.  Or you could get really clever and have the
errors emailed to you.. that way you''ll always get them when
you''re in
production so you can respond to them.


On 4/5/06, Dan Croak <dancroak@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Brian Hogan wrote:
> > I''m only posting this so the next person who has this error
will see
> > it...
> > Whenever you see this error, modify your database.yml file so that
your
> > development and production databases are the same and then launch your
> > app
> > with WEBrick in Development mode. This will rule out your Rails app as
> > the
> > problem so you can then look at the OS / webserver / database.
>
> Hi Brian,
>
> Are you saying to change the database information for development in the
> database.yml to point to the production database?  I''m not sure
that my
> web hosting company is going to let me connect in that way...
>
> Can''t I just turn the default Rails error messaging to give me
full dev
> errors somewhere?  (temporarily of course while I track down the
> problem)  Or will my web host not allow me to do that, either?
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
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Brian Hogan wrote:
> You could do that as well.  Or you could get really clever and have the
> errors emailed to you.. that way you''ll always get them when
you''re in
> production so you can respond to them.
Brian,

Great minds think alike.  When you posted this, I had just gone through 
the process of setting up the emailed errors: 
http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtoSendEmailWhenRailsThrowsAnException

Unfortunately, as with just about everything else I''ve done with Ruby
on
Rails to this point, it doesn''t seem to work yet.  I repeated the error
behavior on both development and production and no emails have been 
sent.

I''m seriously contemplating going back to ASP.NET if I can''t
get a
working app running in Rails soon.  Blaah.

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Ack! Don''t do that! Don''t give up just yet. There are several
good examples
on the web regarding this.

But you should already have a working, tested app that runs locally....
unit, functional, and integration tests can help you find all sorts of bugs
before you go to a production mode environment.


On 4/5/06, Dan Croak <dancroak@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Brian Hogan wrote:
> > You could do that as well.  Or you could get really clever and have
the
> > errors emailed to you.. that way you''ll always get them when
you''re in
> > production so you can respond to them.
>
> Brian,
>
> Great minds think alike.  When you posted this, I had just gone through
> the process of setting up the emailed errors:
>
>
http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowtoSendEmailWhenRailsThrowsAnException
>
> Unfortunately, as with just about everything else I''ve done with
Ruby on
> Rails to this point, it doesn''t seem to work yet.  I repeated the
error
> behavior on both development and production and no emails have been
> sent.
>
> I''m seriously contemplating going back to ASP.NET if I
can''t get a
> working app running in Rails soon.  Blaah.
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
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Hi Dan,

I think you will find that the exception_notification plugin will help
immensely for you.  I wrote up a brief entry on my blog about it:

http://blog.atomgiant.com/articles/2006/03/20/global-error-handling

Feel free to email me directly if you have any problems.

Tom

On 4/5/06, Brian Hogan <bphogan@gmail.com> wrote:
> You could do that as well.  Or you could get really clever and have the
> errors emailed to you.. that way you''ll always get them when
you''re in
> production so you can respond to them.
>
>
>
> On 4/5/06, Dan Croak <dancroak@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Brian Hogan wrote:
> > > I''m only posting this so the next person who has this
error will see
> > > it...
> > > Whenever you see this error, modify your database.yml file so
that your
> > > development and production databases are the same and then launch
your
> > > app
> > > with WEBrick in Development mode. This will rule out your Rails
app as
> > > the
> > > problem so you can then look at the OS / webserver / database.
> >
> > Hi Brian,
> >
> > Are you saying to change the database information for development in
the
> > database.yml to point to the production database?  I''m not
sure that my
> > web hosting company is going to let me connect in that way...
> >
> > Can''t I just turn the default Rails error messaging to give
me full dev
> > errors somewhere?  (temporarily of course while I track down the
> > problem)  Or will my web host not allow me to do that, either?
> >
> > --
> > Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/ .
> > _______________________________________________
> > Rails mailing list
> > Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
>
>

--
Tom Davies

http://blog.atomgiant.com
http://gifthat.com

Tom Davies wrote:
> Hi Dan,
> 
> I think you will find that the exception_notification plugin will help
> immensely for you.  I wrote up a brief entry on my blog about it:
> 
> http://blog.atomgiant.com/articles/2006/03/20/global-error-handling
> 
> Feel free to email me directly if you have any problems.
> 
> Tom

Thanks, Tom.  That will be a big help for emailing the erros to me. 
I''m
configuring ActionMailer for the first time now (must have been why I 
haven''t been able to get any emails to send thus far).

I think the other problems I''ve been having are "rookie"
problems as
well.  I think I have dug up information through my own research that I 
have to restart the FCGI processes every time I move my Rails code up to 
the production server?  Is that right and I am using the correct 
language?  I''m still not sure exactly how I go about doing that 
(restarting FCGI, but I''ll keep looking while I await a response).

Thanks again to all for your help... Hopefully you''ll be able to prove 
the old axiom wrong and you CAN teach an old ASP.NET dog new Ruby on 
Rails tricks...  :)

Dan

-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Yes, everytime you move your code to the production server you should
restart your lighttpd.  If you haven''t tried already, take a look at
Capistrano (aka - SwitchTower).  It makes this pretty painless.

To restart lighttpd, I am using a script like this one:

http://textsnippets.com/posts/show/241

I am also hosted at TextDrive and someone else said that script is
there already for you, but I could not find it, so I created my own
from that snippet.

Good luck,

Tom

On 4/5/06, Dan Croak <dancroak@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Tom Davies wrote:
> > Hi Dan,
> >
> > I think you will find that the exception_notification plugin will help
> > immensely for you.  I wrote up a brief entry on my blog about it:
> >
> > http://blog.atomgiant.com/articles/2006/03/20/global-error-handling
> >
> > Feel free to email me directly if you have any problems.
> >
> > Tom
>
>
> Thanks, Tom.  That will be a big help for emailing the erros to me. 
I''m
> configuring ActionMailer for the first time now (must have been why I
> haven''t been able to get any emails to send thus far).
>
> I think the other problems I''ve been having are "rookie"
problems as
> well.  I think I have dug up information through my own research that I
> have to restart the FCGI processes every time I move my Rails code up to
> the production server?  Is that right and I am using the correct
> language?  I''m still not sure exactly how I go about doing that
> (restarting FCGI, but I''ll keep looking while I await a response).
>
> Thanks again to all for your help... Hopefully you''ll be able to
prove
> the old axiom wrong and you CAN teach an old ASP.NET dog new Ruby on
> Rails tricks...  :)
>
> Dan
>
> --
> Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

--
Tom Davies

http://blog.atomgiant.com
http://gifthat.com