# Large(er) File Uploads

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 9, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992 "2005-12-09T01:06:34Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lists)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992/1 "2005-12-09T01:06:34Z")

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Howdy Folks,

My Rails app allows file uploads in several places. Most of the time the  
files are pretty small (under 1MB) and we never have any trouble.

There is one section where the files are a bit larger, about (10-15MB).  
This  
section uses the same code as other places and works with small files.

It breaks with larger files… This is what happens on both server  
(FCGI/Apache) and local (WebBrick):

Upload the file and click ‘Submit’. The gears turn, looks fine… Then  
it  
just chugs along, forever. Nothing happens, it just sits there. Apache  
will  
go forever, WebBrick eventually dies with an error that it can’t find  
the  
action (strange error).

So, does anyone have any suggestions (other than ‘don’t use HTTP for  
uploads  
of this size’). I realize that FTP and other solutions are better for  
large  
files but in my opinion this file isn’t all that large and I’m pretty  
sure  
that other folks have accomplished this… Strongspace is a Rails app  
and I  
believe handles this situation.

Any advice is very much appreciated.

Cheers.

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**Author:** ![lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lists)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 12:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992/2 "2005-12-09T12:31:17Z")

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If you’re using MySQL the default max\_allowed\_packet size is set to 1M,  
meaning that  
you cannot transfer/receive records larger than 1 megabyte. Resetting  
this  
in the my.ini file to something like 8M and restarting the db may fix  
your problem.

max\_allowed\_packet=8M

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lists)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992/3 "2005-12-09T19:22:42Z")

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Thanks.

I’m actually not on MySQL, we’re on Postgres… But these files are  
being  
stored in the filesystem, not the database so I don’t think that’s  
coming  
into play.

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**Author:** ![lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lists)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992/4 "2005-12-09T19:44:07Z")

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if you’re running apache you may want to check directives:

KeepAlive  
KeepAliveTimeout  
MaxKeepAliveRequests  
RLimitCPU max  
RLimitMEM max

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lists](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/lists)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/large-er-file-uploads/52992/5 "2005-12-09T20:09:58Z")

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Thanks, I will.

I do notice the following errors in my FCGI crash log:

[09/Dec/2005:10:40:51 :: 20136] Dispatcher failed to catch: protocol  
error  
(FCGI::Stream::ProtocolError)  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi.rb:1015:in `read' /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi.rb:1015:in`read\_multipart’  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi.rb:983:in `loop' /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi.rb:983:in`read\_multipart’

/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.11.1/lib/action\_controller/cg  
i\_ext/raw\_post\_data\_fix.rb:20:in `initialize_query' /usr/local/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi.rb:2269:in`initialize’  
(eval):16:in `initialize' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.6.1/./fcgi.rb:600:in`new’  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.6.1/./fcgi.rb:600:in  
`each_cgi' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.6.1/./fcgi.rb:597:in`each’  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/fcgi-0.8.6.1/./fcgi.rb:597:in  
`each_cgi' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-0.14.4/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:52:in`process!’  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-0.14.4/lib/fcgi\_handler.rb:22:in  
`process!’  
/home/www/myapp/apps/myapp/public/dispatch.fcgi:24  
almost killed by this error

This occurs when the upload is in process.