Rails - Sep 2008 - Pop3 Ruby calls cause loss of MySQL connection

Any help is very much appreciated.

MySQL 5.0 and Rails 1.2.6

I have a Deamon process that looks for incoming mail using pop3.  It
all works smashing, except after a day or so, the process starts
throwing this error every time it tries to talk to my database.

Mysql::Error: Lost connection to MySQL server during query: SELECT *
FROM incoming_email_messages WHERE (incoming_email_messages.name
''UID26-1219353451'')  LIMIT 1

I have 4 rails instances running in a mongrel pack as well as 5 other
daemon processes all talking to the same database.  They never
experience this loss of connectivity.  The issue seems to be around my
repeated calls to the Ruby pop3 library.  I suspect that this is some
kind of memory or garbage collection issue, but I don''t know for
sure.  Right now, I have to bounce my thread once a day to snap it out
of it.  I tried moving the Net::POP3.new call outside the loop and
just calling start/finish on the same object but that just make it
stop working altogether.

Here is the thread

#!/usr/bin/env ruby
##
require ''net/pop''
require ''rubygems''        # if you use RubyGems
require ''daemons''

Daemons.run_proc("incoming_email_thread", {:dir_mode => :normal,
:dir
=> ''tmp/pids''}) do
  require "/home/xxxxx/user/xxxxxx/config/environment.rb"
  loop {
    logger.info(''incoming_email_thread: polling for email messages at
'' + Time.now.to_s)
    begin
      pop = Net::POP3.new(''mail.myserver.com'')
     
pop.start(''getit-mXuENlnwU4lWk0Htik3J/w@public.gmane.org'',
''password'')
      if pop.mails.empty?
        logger.info(''incoming_email_thread: no mail at '' +
Time.now.to_s)
      else
        i = 0
        pop.each_mail do |m|
          logger.info(''incoming_email_thread: message with id
'' +
m.unique_id)
          filename = File.expand_path("#{RAILS_ROOT}/public/models/
emails/#{m.unique_id}")
          dbrec = IncomingEmailMessage.new(:name =>
m.unique_id, :header => m.header, :status => ''writing'')
          # This is where I see the error.  The model has a
validate_uniqueness :name
          if dbrec.save
            if !File.exists?(filename)
              File.open(filename, ''w'') do |f|
                m.pop do |chunk|    # get a message little by little.
                  f.write chunk
                end
              end
            end
            dbrec.update_attribute(:status, ''ready'')
          else
            logger.info(''incoming_email_thread: message with id
'' +
m.unique_id + '' has already been fetched'')
          end
          m.delete
        end
        logger.info("incoming_email_thread: #{pop.mails.size} mails
popped.")
      end
      pop.finish
    rescue Exception => exc
      logger.error("incoming_email_thread: receiving email.." +
exc.message)
      logger.error(exc.backtrace.join("\n"))
    end
    sleep 60
  }
end



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Ruby on Rails: Talk" group.
To post to this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
rubyonrails-talk+unsubscribe-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFFw@public.gmane.org
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---