A Mongrel of an Error

Rails
1

I’m a Rails newbie (and a Ruby newbie for that matter). I am working
my way through the book href=“http://www.amazon.com/Simply-Rails-2-
Patrick-Lenz/dp/0980455200/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247152951&sr=8-1”>“Simply Rails 2”.

I have generated the model and controller parts of the sample app, at
which point the author instructs the reader to start the web server
and view the app with their browser.

Viewing http://localhost:3000/stories in my browser should display the
file app/views/stories/index.html.erb, but instead displays the
following error:

Status: 500 Internal Server Error Content-Type: text/html
500 Internal Server Error

Any ideas what might be causing this error?

Please see the partial output from the server below:

=> Booting Mongrel (use ‘script/server webrick’ to force WEBrick)
=> Rails application starting on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Call with -d to detach
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
** Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Starting Rails with development environment…

  * config.breakpoint_server has been deprecated and has no

effect. *

** Rails loaded.
** Loading any Rails specific GemPlugins
** Signals ready. TERM => stop. USR2 => restart. INT => stop (no
restart).
** Rails signals registered. HUP => reload (without restart). It
might not work well.
** Mongrel 1.1.4 available at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Use CTRL-C to stop.
/!\ FAILSAFE /!\ Fri Jul 10 01:07:17 +1000 2009
Status: 500 Internal Server Error
A secret is required to generate an integrity hash for cookie
session data. Use config.action_controller.session = { :session_key =>
“_myapp_session”, :secret => “some secret phrase of at least 30
characters” } in config/environment.rb
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.0.2/lib/action_controller/
session/cookie_store.rb:91:in ensure_secret_secure' /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.0.2/lib/action_controller/ session/cookie_store.rb:60:in initialize’
…

2

On Jul 9, 2009, at 8:49 AM, shusseina wrote:

Viewing http://localhost:3000/stories in my browser should display the

effect. *
** Use CTRL-C to stop.
/!\ FAILSAFE /!\ Fri Jul 10 01:07:17 +1000 2009
Status: 500 Internal Server Error

A secret is required to generate an integrity hash for cookie
session data. Use config.action_controller.session = { :session_key =>
“_myapp_session”, :secret => “some secret phrase of at least 30
characters” } in config/environment.rb

Did you do what it asks here?

If that doesn’t help, see this for more info maybe…

3

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 11:49 AM, shusseina[email protected]
wrote:

Viewing http://localhost:3000/stories in my browser should display the
file app/views/stories/index.html.erb, but instead displays the
following error:

Status: 500 Internal Server Error Content-Type: text/html
500 Internal Server Error

Any ideas what might be causing this error?
…
Status: 500 Internal Server Error
A secret is required to generate an integrity hash for cookie
session data. Use config.action_controller.session = { :session_key =>
“_myapp_session”, :secret => “some secret phrase of at least 30
characters” } in config/environment.rb

Well, it’s telling you how to fix it. You need to put something like

config.action_controller.session = {
:session_key = “-myapp_session”, # where myapp should be the
name of your application instead of myap
:secret => “Some Random String at least 30 characters long,
usually a long hexadecimal string”
}

somewhere inside the intializer block (which begins with)
Rails::Initializer.run do |config|

inside config/environment.rb

You can and probably should use rake secret to generate the secret.

–
Rick DeNatale

Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/RickDeNatale
WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale

4

Thanks guys. I generated the secret string using rake secret and
added the code to config/environment.rb and that error has now
disappeared.

It seems the error came about because I started coding the app under
Rails 1.2.6 and then upgraded to Rails 2.0.2 to be in line with the
version used by the Simply Rails 2 book.

As a newbie I don’t fully understand what rake can be used for, but
I’m sure I’ll learn soon enough.

Thanks again.

5

shusseina wrote:
[…]

It seems the error came about because I started coding the app under
Rails 1.2.6 and then upgraded to Rails 2.0.2 to be in line with the
version used by the Simply Rails 2 book.

The current version is 2.3.2. I strongly recommens that you use that
to learn on, not 2.0.2.

As a newbie I don’t fully understand what rake can be used for, but
I’m sure I’ll learn soon enough.

Rake is designed to automate tasks. As you work with Rails, you will
find that there are many common maintenance tasks that are generally
automated by Rake (type “rake -T” for a list).

Thanks again.

Best,

Marnen Laibow-Koser
http://www.marnen.org
[email protected]