# Apache processes occassionaly hanging under mod rails **URL:** \ **Category:** Deployment\ **Created:** [August 5, 2008, 4:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-processes-occassionaly-hanging-under-mod-rails/145006 "2008-08-05T04:11:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2008, 4:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-processes-occassionaly-hanging-under-mod-rails/145006/1 "2008-08-05T04:11:54Z")
Every couple hours I always get a few apache processes that for some reason never quit properly. When I get enough of them my apache no longer responds to any web requests and I need to restart it. It looks something like this (notice the times for the first 3 apache processes): www-data 19283 16243 0 18:24 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19426 16243 0 18:32 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19437 16243 0 20:31 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19460 16243 0 21:49 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19470 16243 0 21:52 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19483 16243 0 21:54 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19487 16243 0 21:54 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19489 16243 0 21:54 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19493 16243 0 21:54 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start www-data 19501 16243 0 21:55 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start I have killed all of them currently that haven’t been spawned in the past 15 minutes but I think they are stuck at sending response…last time i checked under [http://localhost/server-status](http://localhost/server-status) the only message in my apache error logs are occasionaly: [Mon Aug 04 21:25:13 2008] [info] server seems busy, (you may need to increase StartServers, or Min/MaxSpareServers), spawning 8 children, there are 4 idle, and 21 total children [Mon Aug 04 22:05:28 2008] [info] server seems busy, (you may need to increase StartServers, or Min/MaxSpareServers), spawning 8 children, there are 3 idle, and 19 total children which I have just upped my server settings (i dont think the stalled processes are related to those error message though): Timeout 120 MaxKeepAliveRequests 200 KeepAliveTimeout 3 StartServers 50 MinSpareServers 10 MaxSpareServers 20 MaxClients 256 MaxRequestsPerChild 4000 is there any way to find out what the apache processes are stalled on? I think it might be related to some of my new code because it just started happening recently but I can’t reproduce it on demand. i’m running ubuntu hardy 8.04. thanks! ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-processes-occassionaly-hanging-under-mod-rails/145006/2 "2008-08-07T15:54:58Z")
Scott, ``` It is only recently that I have been playing with mod_rails, I ``` haven’t see such behavior yet. ``` Did the Rails log shows anything that could be associated to the ``` problem? – Aníbal Rojas > **[Home - Has Many Developers](https://hasmanydevelopers.com/)** > > We are the best choice for your building design and development > **[RUBYCORNER.COM](https://www.rubycorner.com/)** > > RUBYCORNER.COM - Contact us for any business inquiries [http://anibal.rojas.com.ve](http://anibal.rojas.com.ve) On Aug 5, 9:11 pm, Scott K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-processes-occassionaly-hanging-under-mod-rails/145006/3 "2008-08-08T03:49:55Z")
Aníbal Rojas wrote: > Scott, > > ``` > It is only recently that I have been playing with mod_rails, I > > ``` > > haven’t see such behavior yet. > > ``` > Did the Rails log shows anything that could be associated to the > > ``` > > problem? > > – > An�bal Rojas > [http://hasmanydevelopers.com](http://hasmanydevelopers.com) > [http://rubycorner.com](http://rubycorner.com) > [http://anibal.rojas.com.ve](http://anibal.rojas.com.ve) > > On Aug 5, 9:11�pm, Scott K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) there were no errors until after i killed the processes…then i could see which page received a sigterm before it finished loading…but i could not reproduce the result. it seemed to happen randomly. i just switched to nginx + thin server last night and everything is working great so far…and using less memory! i think it may be a bug in mod\_rails. ---
**Author:** ![skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@skirkpatrick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/skirkpatrick)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2008, 12:51pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-processes-occassionaly-hanging-under-mod-rails/145006/4 "2008-08-08T12:51:51Z")
I only use Apache when some of its mods or PHP is required. Otherwise I stick to your mix: Nginx + Thin, it is a much lighter and simple solution. Anyway it would be interesting gathering more information regarding your problem as mod\_rails looks promising. * * * Anibal On Aug 8, 8:49 pm, Scott K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)