# Observers dont work

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/observers-dont-work/103386>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 4, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/observers-dont-work/103386 "2007-05-04T23:37:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [May 4, 2007, 11:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/observers-dont-work/103386/1 "2007-05-04T23:37:31Z")

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I have this:

class UserObserver \< ActiveRecord::Observer  
def before\_save(user)  
raise “wtf”  
end  
end

I resarted my web server (mongrel) and everything. When I save a user  
object I don’t get an error at all, it works fine. Any ideas why this is  
not working?

Thanks for your help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/3ec8ea/32.png) [@benjohnson](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/benjohnson)\
**Post date:** [May 5, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/observers-dont-work/103386/2 "2007-05-05T01:27:01Z")

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Ben,

You need to register your observers.I use the following snippet in my  
apps ( in environment or shared lib required on startup ) :

ActiveRecord::Base.observers = Dir.chdir( File.join( RAILS\_ROOT,  
‘app’, ‘observers’ ) ) {  
Dir.glob("\*\*/  
\*.rb").collect{|o| o.gsub!(’.rb’,’’).split(’/’).last.to\_sym }

- Lourens