# Rescue http Bad File Descriptor error (EBADF)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rescue-http-bad-file-descriptor-error-ebadf/66644>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 28, 2006, 5:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rescue-http-bad-file-descriptor-error-ebadf/66644 "2006-08-28T05:45:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Horacio\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/97f17d/32.png) [@Horacio\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Horacio_S)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 5:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rescue-http-bad-file-descriptor-error-ebadf/66644/1 "2006-08-28T05:45:51Z")

</div>

I have a little web spider that scraps several web pages. Sometimes the  
script gets a Bad File Descriptor error and the script bails out.

As far as I can understand this error is an OS (Windows XP) error and  
there  
is nothing ruby can do to avoid it (Maybe XP cannot handle so much http  
connections so rapidly). But I cannot find a way to recover from the  
error… I don’t want the script to bail out, but simply continue with  
the  
next page.

I have tried to rescue and try/catch the error with all imaginable  
exception  
classes, still the script always bails out when this error ocurrs. I  
know  
this error is in the ruby net/http library since I have used Mechanize,  
Http-access2, http-access and all of them suffer from this error.

Here are the details of the error

c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:562:in `initialize': Bad file descriptor - connect(2) (Errno::EBADF) from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:562:in`connect’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:48:in `timeout' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:76:in`timeout’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:562:in `connect' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:555:in`do\_start’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:544:in `start' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mechanize-0.4.7/lib/mechanize.rb:279:in`fetch\_page’  
from  
c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mechanize-0.4.7/lib/mechanize.rb:138:in  
`get' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mechanize-0.4.7/lib/mechanize.rb:193:in`submit’  
from ./urls.rb:1001  
from ./urls.rb:998  
from ./spider.rb:540:in `get_pages' from ./spider.rb:470:in`start’  
from ./spider.rb:733:in `process_link' from ./spider.rb:677:in`start’  
from ./spider.rb:670:in `start’  
from main2.rb:4

I repeat that this error is very sporadic… it occurs at different  
times,  
different pages and using either Mechanize or http-access2 or simple  
open-uri.

The code I use (Mechanize case) is simply:

def get\_page  
@agent = WWW::Mechanize.new  
@page = @agent.get @url  
end

This code is executed for each page (100~). Adding rescue or try/catch  
anywhere inside the get\_page method or around it when called does not  
catch  
the error… the script always stops when the error ocurrs. Also since  
this  
error is very sporadic I cannot reproduce it making it very difficult to  
debug.

Any tips are very appreciated.

Horacio

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Horacio\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/97f17d/32.png) [@Horacio\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Horacio_S)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2006, 4:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rescue-http-bad-file-descriptor-error-ebadf/66644/2 "2006-08-28T16:28:40Z")

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Horacio S. wrote:

> I have a little web spider that scraps several web pages. Sometimes the  
> script gets a Bad File Descriptor error and the script bails out.
> 
> As far as I can understand this error is an OS (Windows XP) error and  
> there  
> is nothing ruby can do to avoid it (Maybe XP cannot handle so much http  
> connections so rapidly). But I cannot find a way to recover from the  
> error… I don’t want the script to bail out, but simply continue with  
> the  
> next page.
> 
> I have tried to rescue and try/catch the error with all imaginable  
> exception  
> classes, still the script always bails out when this error ocurrs. I  
> know  
> this error is in the ruby net/http library since I have used Mechanize,  
> Http-access2, http-access and all of them suffer from this error.

Did you try this?

begin

# Read stuff etc.

rescue Errno::EBADF

# Whatever

end

> Here are the details of the error
> 
> This code is executed for each page (100~). Adding rescue or try/catch  
> anywhere inside the get\_page method or around it when called does not  
> catch  
> the error… the script always stops when the error ocurrs. Also since  
> this  
> error is very sporadic I cannot reproduce it making it very difficult to  
> debug.
> 
> Any tips are very appreciated.
> 
> Horacio

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Horacio\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/h/97f17d/32.png) [@Horacio\_S](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Horacio_S)\
**Post date:** [August 29, 2006, 4:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rescue-http-bad-file-descriptor-error-ebadf/66644/3 "2006-08-29T04:13:24Z")

</div>

I think I did try… but will try again. now I have to wait until the  
error  
occurs again…

thanks