# Application stops working over night: (Errno::EPIPE (Broken **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [May 25, 2006, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600 "2006-05-25T14:57:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600/1 "2006-05-25T14:57:58Z")
I know this question gets asked a lot but I can’t seem to find the answer when I search through the mailing list. First off here’s my set up. Cent OS 4.3 Apache 2.0 Fast CGI 2.4.0 Rails 1.1 Mysql 5.0 The app starts up fine, but every morning it refuses to start and gives me the dreaded Application error untill I reload Apache. I thought my database was timing out so I added this line to my environment.rb ActiveRecord::Base.verification\_timeout = 3000 My database is set to drop inactive connections after 2 hours, so my database should keep the connection open. I can watch the processes on mysql and the rails connection is dropped after about 10 minutes. If I try to access the web page after this timeout, the app re-connects perfectly. This is why I’m completely confused about why the app refuses to start each morning. Here is the related lines from my production log. Errno::EPIPE (Broken pipe): /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/mysql.rb:1042:in `flush' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/mysql.rb:1042:in`write’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/mysql.rb:462:in `write' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/mysql.rb:436:in`command’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/mysql.rb:307:in `stat' /vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/mysql_adapter.rb:147:in`active?’ /vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract\_adapter.rb:85:in `verify!' /vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:99:in`verify\_active\_connections!’ /vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:98:in `verify_active_connections!' /vendor/rails/railties/lib/dispatcher.rb:70:in`prepare\_application’ /vendor/rails/railties/lib/dispatcher.rb:37:in `dispatch' /vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:150:in`process\_request’ /vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi\_handler.rb:54:in `process!' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.6.1/./fcgi.rb:600:in`each\_cgi’ /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.6.1/./fcgi.rb:597:in `each_cgi' /vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:53:in`process!’ /vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi\_handler.rb:23:in `process!’ /var/www/my\_app/htdocs/mailing\_lists/public/dispatch.fcgi:24 Charlie B. Programmer Castle Branch Inc. ---
**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600/2 "2006-05-25T18:57:30Z")
anyone? I’ve almost got my bosses convinced to use Rails! On Thu, 2006-05-25 at 08:55 -0400, Charlie B. wrote: > The app starts up fine, but every morning it refuses to start and gives > refuses to start each morning. Here is the related lines from my > /vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:99:in `verify\_active\_connections!’ > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails) Charlie B. Programmer Castle Branch Inc. ---
**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2006, 4:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600/3 "2006-05-26T04:51:50Z")
If it were my call, I would switch, but it’s not so I’m forced into finding out how to keep the app from dieing every 4 hours. It must be possible, I’ve been running a rails app on dreamhost for 6 monghts with no problem. ---
**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2007, 5:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600/4 "2007-10-20T05:52:39Z")
Charlie B. wrote: > If it were my call, I would switch, but it’s not so I’m forced into > finding out how to keep the app from dieing every 4 hours. It must be > possible, I’ve been running a rails app on dreamhost for 6 monghts with > no problem. I don’t have the exact URL handy, but google this: rails mysql timeout 14400 and you’ll see folks with the problem & answer. There may be discussions in this forum with those words. ---
**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2006, 9:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600/5 "2006-05-25T21:54:39Z")
Hi ! On May 25, 2006, at 5:55 AM, Charlie B. wrote: > The app starts up fine, but every morning it refuses to start and > gives > me the dreaded Application error untill I reload Apache. I thought my > database was timing out so I added this line to my environment.rb > > ActiveRecord::Base.verification\_timeout = 3000 \> \> Charlie B. \> Programmer \> Castle Branch Inc. Charlie- ``` Apache and fcgi just don't seem to get along that well. I have never ``` been able to get rid of all the various errors you get when apache and fcgi stop talking to each other. mod\_fastcgi is just a little bit crusty it seems. You may want to try using mod\_fcgid as I have heard that is a better option. But what I really recommend right now is to dump fcgi. Upgrade your apache install to version 2.2 and use mod\_proxy\_balancer to proxy to a few mongrel backends. Mongrel is every bit as fast and way more stable then fcgi. There are a few good articles around for the config options for this. But Bradley Taylor has written a very nice config for using apache this way that lets apache serve all statis and cached content , and then mongrel serves all dynamic requests. ``` Here is what vhost would look like if you were running 3 mongrel ``` backends. \ ServerName [yourdomain.com](http://yourdomain.com) DocumentRoot /var/apps/your\_app/current/public \ Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order allow,deny Allow from all # Configure mongrel\_cluster \ BalancerMember [http://127.0.0.1:8000](http://127.0.0.1:8000) BalancerMember [http://127.0.0.1:8001](http://127.0.0.1:8001) BalancerMember [http://127.0.0.1:8002](http://127.0.0.1:8002) RewriteEngine On # Uncomment for rewrite debugging #RewriteLog logs/your\_app\_deflate\_log deflate #RewriteLogLevel 9 # Check for maintenance file and redirect all requests RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT\_ROOT}/system/maintenance.html -f RewriteCond %{SCRIPT\_FILENAME} !maintenance.html RewriteRule ^.\*$ /system/maintenance.html [L] # Rewrite index to check for static RewriteRule ^/$ /index.html [QSA] # Rewrite to check for Rails cached page RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA] # Redirect all non-static requests to cluster RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT\_ROOT}/%{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-f RewriteRule ^/(.\*)$ balancer://mongrel\_cluster%{REQUEST\_URI} [P,QSA,L] # Deflate AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html # Uncomment for deflate debugging #DeflateFilterNote Input input\_info #DeflateFilterNote Output output\_info #DeflateFilterNote Ratio ratio\_info #LogFormat ‘“%r” %{output\_info}n/%{input\_info}n (%{ratio\_info}n% %)’ deflate #CustomLog logs/your\_app\_deflate\_log deflate ErrorLog logs/your\_app\_error\_log CustomLog logs/your\_access\_log combined Hope that helps. It really is a much more stable setup then apace and fcgi. I highly recommend it. Cheers- -Ezra ---
**Author:** ![beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@beachguy82](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/beachguy82)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2007, 6:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/application-stops-working-over-night-errno-epipe-broken/61600/6 "2007-10-20T18:04:39Z")
[http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/faq.html:](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/faq.html:) \_ \__Q: Mongrel stops working if it’s left alone for a long time._ If you find that Mongrel stops working after a long idle time and you’re using MySQL then you’re hitting a bug in the MySQL driver that doesn’t properly timeout connections. What happens is the MySQL _server_ side of the connection times out and closes, but the MySQL _client_ doesn’t detect this and just sits there. What you have to do is set: |ActiveRecord::Base.verification\_timeout = 14400| Or to any value that is lower than the MySQL server’s _interactive\_timeout_ setting. This will make sure that ActiveRecord checks the connection often enough to reset the connection.