# Production mode bug with ruby/amazon

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/production-mode-bug-with-ruby-amazon/114355>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [September 11, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/production-mode-bug-with-ruby-amazon/114355 "2007-09-11T18:26:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a87d85/32.png) [@chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chriszf13)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/production-mode-bug-with-ruby-amazon/114355/1 "2007-09-11T18:26:16Z")

</div>

Hi all,

I’ve got an issue that only ever appears in production mode. I’ve got  
my app hooked up to amazon’s web service (ECS, using ruby/amazon from  
[Ruby/Amazon](http://www.caliban.org/ruby/ruby-amazon.shtml)).

In the dev environment, everything’s peachy. But in production mode,  
after I’ve left the app up for a couple of hours (sometimes, minutes),  
I get an exception:

Processing LibraryController#add\_to\_library (for 24.7.104.3 at  
2007-09-11 07:36:  
11) [POST]  
Session ID: 1bc197aadd3678c166a758604c072753  
Parameters: {“commit”=\>“Submit”, “action”=\>“add\_to\_library”,  
“controller”=\>“li  
brary”, “query”=\>{“media”=\>“books”, “asin”=\>“quilt”}}  
Connection to amazon remade: + Connection reset by peer

Timeout::Error (execution expired):  
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:54:in `write0' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:151:in `write’  
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:166:in `writing' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:150:in `write’  
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1542:in `write_header' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1500:in `exec’  
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1044:in `request' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:771:in `get’  
/lib/amazon/search.rb:973:in `get_page' /lib/amazon/search.rb:1013:in `search’  
/lib/amazon/search.rb:734:in `keyword_search' /app/models/asset.rb:98:in `amazon\_search’

The timeout error comes from a timeout statement I’ve thrown around  
the whole thing to hopefully catch the error. Without it, the call  
just times out and I lose the thread completely and have to restart  
the mongrel cluster. Here’s what that looks like:

```
retries = 3

#Errno::ECONNRESET
begin
  Timeout::timeout(2) { products = search_method.call(key,

```

mode).products }  
rescue  
# Errno::ECONNRESET, Errno::EPIPE =\> failure  
if retries \> 0  
@@req = Amazon::Search::Request.new(@@dev\_token)  
retries -= 1  
logger.error “Connection to amazon remade: #{$!}”  
retry  
else  
logger.error “Connection to amazon destroyed: #{$!}”  
raise  
end  
end

Here, search\_method is just an alias to one of the  
Amazon::Search::Request methods. I’m totally lost here, if anyone can  
help. I have no idea why the whole thing only seems to retry once, and  
why I even get the connection reset at all while in production mode. I  
tries reducing my mongrel cluster to a single instance, thinking that  
maybe it was some weird multithreading issue that was causing it, but  
that dies too.

I’d appreciate any help. Thanks.

–  
Christian

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a87d85/32.png) [@chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chriszf13)\
**Post date:** [September 21, 2007, 2:25am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/production-mode-bug-with-ruby-amazon/114355/2 "2007-09-21T02:25:48Z")

</div>

Hi,

Is there any solution to this problem yet?

I got the same problem: there is one statement trying to make server  
connection.  
It got error, but the rescue coule not catch it. So the whole script  
died.

This problem happens pretty persistently.

begin  
…

# this line is to connect to the server

poster.run  
…

rescue  
puts “something wrong here. Error is: #{e.message}”

end

Error message:

/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:54:in `rbuf_fill': execution expired (Timeout::Error) from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:56:in `timeout’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:76:in `timeout' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:132:in `rbuf\_fill’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:116:in `readuntil' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:126:in `readline’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2017:in `read_status_line' from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:2006:in `read\_new’  
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1047:in `request' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mechanize-0.6.10/lib/mechanize.rb:514:in `fetch\_page’  
from  
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mechanize-0.6.10/lib/mechanize.rb:428:in  
`post_form' from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mechanize-0.6.10/lib/mechanize.rb:233:in `post’  
from ./…/runner/…/…/src/scripts/post.rb:124:in `login' from ./../runner/../../src/scripts/post.rb:37:in `run’  
from next\_input.rb:14  
from next\_input.rb:10:in `each’  
from next\_input.rb:10

Any hint?

Thanks  
~Andrew C.

chriszf13 wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I’ve got an issue that only ever appears in production mode. I’ve got  
> my app hooked up to amazon’s web service (ECS, using ruby/amazon from  
> [Ruby/Amazon](http://www.caliban.org/ruby/ruby-amazon.shtml)).
> 
> In the dev environment, everything’s peachy. But in production mode,  
> after I’ve left the app up for a couple of hours (sometimes, minutes),  
> I get an exception:
> 
> Processing LibraryController#add\_to\_library (for 24.7.104.3 at  
> 2007-09-11 07:36:  
> 11) [POST]  
> Session ID: 1bc197aadd3678c166a758604c072753  
> Parameters: {“commit”=\>“Submit”, “action”=\>“add\_to\_library”,  
> “controller”=\>“li  
> brary”, “query”=\>{“media”=\>“books”, “asin”=\>“quilt”}}  
> Connection to amazon remade: + Connection reset by peer
> 
> Timeout::Error (execution expired):  
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:54:in `write0' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:151:in `write’  
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:166:in `writing' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:150:in `write’  
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1542:in `write_header' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1500:in `exec’  
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1044:in `request' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:771:in `get’  
> /lib/amazon/search.rb:973:in `get_page' /lib/amazon/search.rb:1013:in `search’  
> /lib/amazon/search.rb:734:in `keyword_search' /app/models/asset.rb:98:in `amazon\_search’
> 
> The timeout error comes from a timeout statement I’ve thrown around  
> the whole thing to hopefully catch the error. Without it, the call  
> just times out and I lose the thread completely and have to restart  
> the mongrel cluster. Here’s what that looks like:
> 
> ```
> retries = 3
> 
> #Errno::ECONNRESET
> begin
> Timeout::timeout(2) { products = search_method.call(key,
> 
> ```
> 
> mode).products }  
> rescue  
> # Errno::ECONNRESET, Errno::EPIPE =\> failure  
> if retries \> 0  
> @@req = Amazon::Search::Request.new(@@dev\_token)  
> retries -= 1  
> logger.error “Connection to amazon remade: #{$!}”  
> retry  
> else  
> logger.error “Connection to amazon destroyed: #{$!}”  
> raise  
> end  
> end
> 
> Here, search\_method is just an alias to one of the  
> Amazon::Search::Request methods. I’m totally lost here, if anyone can  
> help. I have no idea why the whole thing only seems to retry once, and  
> why I even get the connection reset at all while in production mode. I  
> tries reducing my mongrel cluster to a single instance, thinking that  
> maybe it was some weird multithreading issue that was causing it, but  
> that dies too.
> 
> I’d appreciate any help. Thanks.
> 
> –  
> Christian

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a87d85/32.png) [@chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chriszf13)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2007, 7:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/production-mode-bug-with-ruby-amazon/114355/3 "2007-10-19T19:23:56Z")

</div>

Andrew C. wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Is there any solution to this problem yet?
> 
> I got the same problem: there is one statement trying to make server  
> connection.  
> It got error, but the rescue coule not catch it. So the whole script  
> died.
> 
> This problem happens pretty persistently.
> 
> begin  
> …
> 
> # this line is to connect to the server
> 
> poster.run  
> …
> 
> rescue  
> puts “something wrong here. Error is: #{e.message}”
> 
> end

Just an update on this – the reason your code was failing was that  
begin … rescue …end won’t rescue a Timeout:Error (which I discovered  
in another post when trying to sort a problem with YouTube).

The reason is that rescue by default only rescues StandardError and  
those exceptions that inherit from it. Timeout:Error doesn’t apparently.

Cheers

## Chris

Autopendium :: Stuff about old cars  
[http://autopendium.com](http://autopendium.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/a87d85/32.png) [@chriszf13](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/chriszf13)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2007, 3:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/production-mode-bug-with-ruby-amazon/114355/4 "2007-10-10T15:36:07Z")

</div>

I had all sorts of problems with this, and in the end wrapping the call  
to Amazon::Search::Request in a 10 second timeout was the best  
compromise I could manage:

def amazon\_wrapper\_method  
Timeout::timeout(10) do  
begin  
request =  
Request.new(DEV\_TOKEN,AMAZON\_ASSOCIATES[country],country)  
…  
end  
end  
rescue Timeout::Error  
end

I’d originally tried a 5 second timeout, but had problems with the REXML  
parsing and the timeout, and so this at least cut down the errors, and  
in particularly Mongrel timing out the thread and subsequent probs that  
caused.

For what it’s worth, I’ve now ditched Ruby/Amazon and made the move to  
ECS 4 (ECS 3 is being phased out early next year, so you’ll need to do  
it pretty soon), and used the amazon-ecs gem  
([http://www.pluitsolutions.com/projects/amazon-ecs](http://www.pluitsolutions.com/projects/amazon-ecs)).

It’s very lightweight, but partly because of that is a cinch to extend  
– I just put it into vendor, added a file of methods to extend it (e.g.  
so you can do item.asin, item.title etc) and job done.

Hope this helps

Chris

Andrew C. wrote:

> ```
> from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:116:in `readuntil'
> from 
> 
> ```
> 
> Thanks
> 
> > In the dev environment, everything’s peachy. But in production mode,  
> > Connection to amazon remade: + Connection reset by peer  
> > /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:771:in `get’
> > 
> > ```
> > retries -= 1
> > 
> > ```
> > 
> > Amazon::Search::Request methods. I’m totally lost here, if anyone can

## –

Autopendium :: Stuff about old cars  
[http://autopendium.com](http://autopendium.com)