# Runner suddenly fails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 21, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283 "2009-01-21T17:13:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mattias)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283/1 "2009-01-21T17:13:22Z")

</div>

I have some jobs running through cron jobs and runner that suddenly  
starts failing.

This is how it looks:

from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.1.2/lib/commands/runner.rb:47  
from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom\_require.rb:27:in  
`gem_original_require' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in`require’  
from /usr/local/www/letter\_archive/crontabs/…/script/runner:3

This only happens if the job gets triggered by cron not if I do it by  
hand.

I suspect this started hapening when I upgraded to gem 1.3.1

Any ideas?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mattias)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 2:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283/2 "2009-01-22T02:29:41Z")

</div>

Mattias B. wrote:

> from  
> /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom\_require.rb:27:in  
> `require’  
> from /usr/local/www/letter\_archive/crontabs/…/script/runner:3
> 
> This only happens if the job gets triggered by cron not if I do it by  
> hand.
> 
> I suspect this started hapening when I upgraded to gem 1.3.1
> 
> Any ideas?

I’d have to see more of the stack trace to be sure, but it’s  
probably due to problems with either the PATH or GEM\_HOME  
environment variables in the cron shell context.

Try a crontab command like

env PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin GEM\_HOME=/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8  
/usr/local/www/letter\_archive/script/runner -e production

–  
Rails Wheels - Find Plugins, List & Sell Plugins -  
[http://railswheels.com](http://railswheels.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mattias)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 8:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283/3 "2009-01-22T08:56:12Z")

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This is how the complete message looks like:

/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.1.2/lib/commands/runner.rb:47:  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/mysql\_adapter.rb:527:in  
`real_connect': Unknown database 'dbname_production' (Mysql::Error) from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/mysql_adapter.rb:527:in`connect’  
from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/mysql\_adapter.rb:186:in  
`initialize' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/mysql_adapter.rb:85:in`new’  
from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/mysql\_adapter.rb:85:in  
`mysql_connection' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:292:in`send’  
from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:292:in  
`connection=' from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:260:in`retrieve\_connection’  
from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.1.2/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:78:in  
`connection' ... 6 levels... from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.1.2/lib/commands/runner.rb:47 from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in`gem\_original\_require’  
from  
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom\_require.rb:27:in  
`require’  
from /usr/local/www/letter\_archive/crontabs/…/script/runner:3

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mattias)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 11:44am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283/4 "2009-01-23T11:44:00Z")

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Mattias B. wrote:

> `real\_connect’: Unknown database ‘dbname\_production’ (Mysql::Error)

Does this exist, or do you want to use the dbname\_development database  
by leaving the “-e production” option off the runner command?

–  
Rails Wheels - Find Plugins, List & Sell Plugins -  
[http://railswheels.com](http://railswheels.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mattias)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2009, 9:37am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283/5 "2009-01-22T09:37:49Z")

</div>

The database exists so it’s not that.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/cab0a1/32.png) [@mattias](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/mattias)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2009, 12:15pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/runner-suddenly-fails/158283/6 "2009-01-23T12:15:07Z")

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After hours of testing and debugging I found that these masseges was  
comming from the backup machine and not from the production one.

Problem solved