# Problems with RJS w/ Lighttpd & Ubuntu

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 10, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662 "2006-10-10T16:50:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 4:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/1 "2006-10-10T16:50:28Z")

</div>

I have my code working on my local machine no problem, but when I upload  
to the server the RJS effects I have aren’t working. The server is  
running Ubuntu Dapper w/ lighttpd while on my local machine I’m using  
webrick.

For kicks I shut down lightty and booted my app on the server with  
webrick and it works fine. So it’s definitely a lightty issue.

Anyone else seen it and/or know how to resolve?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/2 "2006-10-10T18:11:54Z")

</div>

Just a guess, but it sounds like lighty is munging your javascript  
files somehow. Can you further illuminate your server’s setup? Does  
the following return a gob of javascript code?

[http://yourserver.com/javascripts/effects.js](http://yourserver.com/javascripts/effects.js)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 6:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/3 "2006-10-10T18:18:13Z")

</div>

Eden Li wrote:

> Just a guess, but it sounds like lighty is munging your javascript  
> files somehow. Can you further illuminate your server’s setup? Does  
> the following return a gob of javascript code?
> 
> [http://yourserver.com/javascripts/effects.js](http://yourserver.com/javascripts/effects.js)

Yeah I just see code when I try that. I shut down lightty and used  
webrick as a test and it works. So it’s definitely an issue with  
lighttpd. ☹ I’m on version 1.4.11 using Ubuntu Dapper. Looks like  
1.4.13 is out but not yet in the repos.

I suppose I will have to try manually installing it to see if that  
solves my issue.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/4 "2006-10-10T18:45:50Z")

</div>

Eden Li wrote:

> Can you further illuminate your server’s setup?

Here is my lighttpd.conf:

server.modules = (  
“mod\_rewrite”,  
“mod\_redirect”,  
“mod\_access”,  
“mod\_fastcgi”,  
“mod\_compress”,  
“mod\_accesslog”)

server.document-root = “/var/www”  
server.bind = “0.0.0.0”  
server.port = 80  
server.pid-file = “/tmp/main\_lighttpd.pid”  
server.tag = “lighttpd”  
server.errorlog = “/var/log/lighttpd.error.log”  
server.indexfiles =  
(“index.php”,“index.html”,“index.htm”,“default.htm”)

$HTTP[“host”] =~ “(^|.)[beta.myapp.net](http://beta.myapp.net)” {  
url.access-deny = ( “~”, “.php” )  
server.document-root = “/var/www/myapp/public/”  
server.error-handler-404 = “/dispatch.fcgi”  
server.indexfiles = (“dispatch.fcgi”)  
accesslog.filename = “/var/log/myapp.access.log”  
fastcgi.server = (“.fcgi” =\>  
(“localhost” =\>  
(“socket” =\> “/tmp/myapp.socket”,  
“min-procs” =\> 2,  
“max-procs” =\> 2,  
“bin-path” =\> “/var/www/myapp/public/dispatch.fcgi”,  
“bin-environment” =\> (“RAILS\_ENV” =\> “development”)  
)))  
}

mimetype.assign = (  
“.pdf” =\> “application/pdf”,  
“.sig” =\> “application/pgp-signature”,  
“.spl” =\> “application/futuresplash”,  
“.class” =\> “application/octet-stream”,  
“.ps” =\> “application/postscript”,  
“.torrent” =\> “application/x-bittorrent”,  
“.dvi” =\> “application/x-dvi”,  
“.gz” =\> “application/x-gzip”,  
“.pac” =\> “application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig”,  
“.swf” =\> “application/x-shockwave-flash”,  
“.tar.gz” =\> “application/x-tgz”,  
“.tgz” =\> “application/x-tgz”,  
“.tar” =\> “application/x-tar”,  
“.zip” =\> “application/zip”,  
“.mp3” =\> “audio/mpeg”,  
“.m3u” =\> “audio/x-mpegurl”,  
“.wma” =\> “audio/x-ms-wma”,  
“.wax” =\> “audio/x-ms-wax”,  
“.ogg” =\> “audio/x-wav”,  
“.wav” =\> “audio/x-wav”,  
“.gif” =\> “image/gif”,  
“.jpg” =\> “image/jpeg”,  
“.jpeg” =\> “image/jpeg”,  
“.png” =\> “image/png”,  
“.xbm” =\> “image/x-xbitmap”,  
“.xpm” =\> “image/x-xpixmap”,  
“.xwd” =\> “image/x-xwindowdump”,  
“.css” =\> “text/css”,  
“.html” =\> “text/html”,  
“.htm” =\> “text/html”,  
“.js” =\> “text/javascript”,  
“.asc” =\> “text/plain”,  
“.c” =\> “text/plain”,  
“.conf” =\> “text/plain”,  
“.text” =\> “text/plain”,  
“.txt” =\> “text/plain”,  
“.dtd” =\> “text/xml”,  
“.xml” =\> “text/xml”,  
“.mpeg” =\> “video/mpeg”,  
“.mpg” =\> “video/mpeg”,  
“.mov” =\> “video/quicktime”,  
“.qt” =\> “video/quicktime”,  
“.avi” =\> “video/x-msvideo”,  
“.asf” =\> “video/x-ms-asf”,  
“.asx” =\> “video/x-ms-asf”,  
“.wmv” =\> “video/x-ms-wmv”,  
“.bz2” =\> “application/x-bzip”,  
“.tbz” =\> “application/x-bzip-compressed-tar”,  
“.tar.bz2” =\> “application/x-bzip-compressed-tar”  
)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/5 "2006-10-10T20:42:41Z")

</div>

Ok, I updated to lighttpd 1.4.13 (latest) but am still having the same  
problem. I am _stumped_.

Anyone have any ideas? Here is the .rjs in question:

page \<\< “var a=0;”  
if @mapsnew  
for mapsnew in @mapsnew  
page \<\< “var e=new GLatLng(#{params[:evt\_latitude]},  
#{params[:evt\_longitude]}).distanceFrom(new GLatLng( #{mapsnew.latitude}  
, #{mapsnew.longitude.to\_f} ))/1000;”  
page \<\< “if(a==0){”  
@evnt=Event.find(mapsnew.event\_id)  
page.replace\_html ‘maplist’, content\_tag(‘li’, “#{@evnt.event\_head[0…25]}…” , :id =\>  
‘list\_item’ )  
page \<\< “}else{”  
page.insert\_html :bottom, ‘maplist’, content\_tag(‘li’, “#{@evnt.event\_head[0…25]}…” , :id =\>  
‘list\_item’ )  
page \<\< “}”  
page \<\< “a=a+1;”  
end  
else  
page.replace\_html ‘maplist’, content\_tag(‘li’, “No events to  
list!!!” , :id =\> ‘list\_item’ )  
end

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/6 "2006-10-11T13:29:17Z")

</div>

Eden Li wrote:

> Anyone else? Am I missing anything?

I finally solved this… firebug gave me some clues. Turns out my POST  
requests were showing up like this:

Connection: close  
Transfer-Encoding: chunked  
38.909643Content-Type: text/javascript  
Set-Cookie: \_session\_id=246ae40922c0fd45f1514aeb4bf790ae; path=/  
Cache-Control: no-cache  
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2006 19:41:35 GMT  
Server: lighttpd

That 38.909643 figure was obscuring the Content-Type so it wasn’t  
getting picked up. I had a print statement which was putting out that  
number and as soon as I erased it from my code everything started  
working again.

I have no idea why lightty would pick up a print statement as part of  
the post though. Seems like that has to be a bug.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to look through this with me!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2006, 9:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/7 "2006-10-11T09:32:03Z")

</div>

Really strange. Your config looks fine (although I speak from only  
having run lighty+fcgi a few times, I’ve switched to mongrel+pen+lighty  
since).

A few more things to check:

- Make sure that the RJS action is even being hit by looking in the  
development.log (you’ve told it to go into development mode on purpose,  
right?). Also check this log to see if any exceptions are being  
thrown.
- Open up the rendered page and double check the javascript to make  
sure the action is being referenced properly.
- Try hitting the RJS action directly with your browser to see what you  
get back (provided you’ve not hidden it behind a request.xhr? check)

Anyone else? Am I missing anything?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vince](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/vince)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 10:32am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problems-with-rjs-w-lighttpd-ubuntu/71662/8 "2006-10-12T10:32:49Z")

</div>

Ooh, ouch.

Looks like others have run into this as well:  
[http://source.mihelac.org/articles/2006/06/05/do-not-use-puts-in-rails](http://source.mihelac.org/articles/2006/06/05/do-not-use-puts-in-rails)

I like to use “logger” and “raise object.to\_yaml” during debugging.  
The former will harmlessly log into your log/#{RAILS\_ENV}.log file and  
the latter is so noticeable (and easy to grep for) it’ll be hard to  
miss it during a deploy.