# Backgroundjob (bj) stopped working

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 19, 2008, 1:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619 "2008-11-19T13:30:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 1:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619/1 "2008-11-19T13:30:40Z")

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Hi

We have been using bj for a while now to upload images to S3 for  
storage.  
Everything was running fine, but recently bj has completely stopped  
working.

In the past Bj would just start working when I started mongrel. I  
found that if I logged into the console and issued

Bj.run

Bj would run perfectly, however, failing to do that and no bj for me 🙂

Any thoughts?

We are running on Rails 2.2 but I am hoping it is related to something  
else.

Ivor

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**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619/2 "2008-11-19T16:27:24Z")

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For educational purposes - does no one have an opinion, or did I not  
qualify this question well enough?

I

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619/3 "2008-11-19T16:31:31Z")

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On 19 Nov 2008, at 15:20, Ivor P. wrote:

> For educational purposes - does no one have an opinion, or did I not  
> qualify this question well enough?

Either that or

- it’s only been three hours
- it’s only 10 am on the east coast and 7am pacific.
- you haven’t actually provided much information apart from “it  
doesn’t work” (is the runner running/not running/failing to start? Is  
it starting and then crashing, if so is it producting any output (logs  
etc…)

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619/4 "2008-11-19T16:46:59Z")

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Cool, thanks

I compared my email to the other emails that came after mine and just  
wondered what the difference was. I do realize that this isn’t a very  
general problem. Im sitting at GMT +2 so didn’t realise how early it  
was in im guessing the east coast of the usa.

In the past, we had a after\_create function in a model that submitted  
a task to Bj. Bj would as expected pick this up and execute the task.  
We did not have the runner configured to run in cluster mode, but let  
Bj manage itself.

Recently, we saw that although the jobs were being created:

Bj.table.job.all =\>  
[#\<Bj::Table::Job bj\_job\_id: 4, command: “tail -n 500  
log/development.log”, state: “pending”, priority: 0, tag: “”,  
is\_restartable: 1, submitter: “TheLuggage”, runner: nil, pid: nil,  
submitted\_at: “2008-11-19 14:43:28”, started\_at: nil, finished\_at:  
nil, env: nil, stdin: nil, stdout: nil, stderr: nil, exit\_status:  
nil\>, #\<Bj::Table::Job bj\_job\_id: 5, command:  
"/home/someuser/someproject/script/runner “Image.f…”, state:  
“pending”, priority: 0, tag: “”, is\_restartable: 1, submitter:  
“TheLuggage”, runner: nil, pid: nil, submitted\_at: “2008-11-19  
14:50:25”, started\_at: nil, finished\_at: nil, env: nil, stdin: nil,  
stdout: nil, stderr: nil, exit\_status: nil\>, #\<Bj::Table::Job  
bj\_job\_id: 6, command: "/home/someuser/someproject/script/runner  
“Image.f…”, state: “pending”, priority: 0, tag: “”, is\_restartable:  
1, submitter: “TheLuggage”, runner: nil, pid: nil, submitted\_at:  
“2008-11-19 14:50:49”, started\_at: nil, finished\_at: nil, env: nil,  
stdin: nil, stdout: nil, stderr: nil, exit\_status: nil\>,  
#\<Bj::Table::Job bj\_job\_id: 7, command:  
"/home/ivor/workspace/talkies/script/runner “Image.f…”, state:  
“pending”, priority: 0, tag: “”, is\_restartable: 1, submitter:  
“TheLuggage”, runner: nil, pid: nil, submitted\_at: “2008-11-19  
14:52:55”, started\_at: nil, finished\_at: nil, env: nil, stdin: nil,  
stdout: nil, stderr: nil, exit\_status: nil\>, #\<Bj::Table::Job  
bj\_job\_id: 8, command: "/home/someuser/someproject/script/runner  
“Image.f…”, state: “pending”, priority: 0, tag: “”, is\_restartable:  
1, submitter: “TheLuggage”, runner: nil, pid: nil, submitted\_at:  
“2008-11-19 14:55:33”, started\_at: nil, finished\_at: nil, env: nil,  
stdin: nil, stdout: nil, stderr: nil, exit\_status: nil\>,  
#\<Bj::Table::Job bj\_job\_id: 9, command:  
"/home/someuser/someproject/script/runner “Image.f…”, state:  
“pending”, priority: 0, tag: “”, is\_restartable: 1, submitter:  
“TheLuggage”, runner: nil, pid: nil, submitted\_at: “2008-11-19  
14:55:54”, started\_at: nil, finished\_at: nil, env: nil, stdin: nil,  
stdout: nil, stderr: nil, exit\_status: nil\>]

However, the jobs are never executed. It feels like what ever couping  
there was with Bj and the script/server is missing.

Bj.runner.ping  
=\> nil

Bj.runner.tickle  
=\> {“pid”=\>11693, “command”=\>"/usr/bin/ruby1.8  
“/home/someuser/someproject/script/bj” “run” “–forever”  
“–redirect=/home/someuser/someproject/log/bj.TheLuggage.development.log”  
“–ppid=11445” “–rails\_env=development”  
“–rails\_root=/home/someuser/someproject”"}

We are running Rails2.2

I will be more than willing to provide additional information - not  
sure what would help.  
Thanks for the feedback.

Ivor

On Wed, Nov 19, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Frederick C.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ecccb3/32.png) [@apie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/apie)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/backgroundjob-bj-stopped-working/153619/5 "2008-11-19T17:12:50Z")

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On Nov 19, 3:46 pm, “Ivor P.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Cool, thanks
> 
> I compared my email to the other emails that came after mine and just  
> wondered what the difference was. I do realize that this isn’t a very  
> general problem. Im sitting at GMT +2 so didn’t realise how early it  
> was in im guessing the east coast of the usa.

The other thing is how many people are using bj ( I for example have  
never used it). You may find that there are more people using it on  
ruby-talk

> "–redirect=/home/someuser/someproject/log/bj.TheLuggage.development.log"  
> "–ppid=11445" "–rails\_env=development"  
> "–rails\_root=/home/someuser/someproject""}

Have your checked that that log file doesn’t have any clues and that  
all of those paths are sane? You want to be able to tell the  
difference between the task runner thing not even trying to run your  
tasks and trying but failing.

Fred