# Status: 500 Internal Server Error - A session\_key is require **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 4, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738 "2007-04-04T02:57:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 2:57am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/1 "2007-04-04T02:57:31Z")
Hi, Anyone seen this error / have any suggestions here? I basically did a “cap deploy” to dreamhost but I’m now getting this in the “production.log” when trying to run up the application. The key things I changed in the deployment is that I: a) When to rails v1.2.3 (well to revision 6419 really for completeness - which I looked up to be v1.2.3) b) I implemented the deployment technique from Mike C. at the bottom section (“The Cadillac Approach”) of [http://clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/2007/01/18#ManagingVersionsWithCap](http://clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/2007/01/18#ManagingVersionsWithCap), i.e. - checks out rails (rev 6419) to a shared area - then symlinks the app /vendor/rails directory to this area - basically allows capistrano to be run to update your application but without having to put rails into the project to minimise checkout time Any ideas? (actually I’m not exactly sure with this approach what setting I should use in environment.rb for RAILS\_GEM\_VERSION - I’ve tried both commenting it out and setting it to ‘1.2.2’ but I get the below error in both cases) DISPATCHER FAILSAFE RESPONSE (has cgi) Tue Apr 03 12:33:37 -0700 2007 Status: 500 Internal Server Error A session\_key is required to write a cookie containing the session data. Use config.action\_controller.session = { :session\_key =\> “\_myapp\_session”, :secret =\> “some secret phrase” } in config/environment.rb …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/session/cookie\_store.rb:49:in `initialize' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi/session.rb:273:in `new’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/cgi/session.rb:273:in `initialize\_without\_cgi\_reader’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/cgi\_ext/session\_performance\_fix.rb:33:in `initialize’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/cgi\_process.rb:124:in `new’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/cgi\_process.rb:124:in `session’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/cgi\_process.rb:156:in `stale\_session\_check!’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/cgi\_process.rb:111:in `session’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/base.rb:1097:in `assign\_shortcuts\_without\_flash’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/flash.rb:174:in `assign\_shortcuts’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/base.rb:467:in `process\_without\_filters’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/filters.rb:652:in `process\_without\_session\_management\_support’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/session\_management.rb:122:in `process’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action\_controller/base.rb:326:in `process' ../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/dispatcher.rb:39:in `dispatch’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi\_handler.rb:168:in `process_request' ../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:143:in `process\_each\_request!’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi\_handler.rb:109:in `with_signal_handler' ../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:142:in `process\_each\_request!’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/fcgi.rb:600:in `each_cgi' /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/fcgi.rb:597:in `each’ /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/fcgi.rb:597:in `each_cgi' ../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:141:in `process\_each\_request!’ …/config/…/vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi\_handler.rb:55:in `process!' ../config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/fcgi_handler.rb:25:in `process!’ dispatch.fcgi:24 Tks Greg ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/2 "2007-04-04T13:11:18Z")
PS. I have confirmed that using this approach (“The Cadillac Approach”) it has worked with rails 1.2.1 and 1.2.2. It is just 1.2.3 that is giving this issue. Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 3:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/3 "2007-04-04T15:43:08Z")
Edge Rails is trying out a new cookie-based session. You have to set some variables in environment.rb. Personally, I don’t understand why the environment.rb in Edge doesn’t come with this setting already in it but whatever. You can read more about it here… [http://ryandaigle.com/articles/2007/2/21/what-s-new-in-edge-rails-cookie-based-sessions](http://ryandaigle.com/articles/2007/2/21/what-s-new-in-edge-rails-cookie-based-sessions) Hope that helps. RSL ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 10:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/4 "2007-04-04T22:58:11Z")
Thanks - The curiosity I have is that I was checking out based on the “6419” tag, whic is (my understanding), is the Rails 1.2.3 release. So I’m wondering if this latest release of rails v1.2.3 has an issue? Perhaps I should post on the dev/core mailing list? ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/5 "2007-04-05T02:33:30Z")
On 4/4/07, Greg H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Thanks - The curiosity I have is that I was checking out based on the “6419” > tag, whic is (my understanding), is the Rails 1.2.3 release. So I’m > wondering if this latest release of rails v1.2.3 has an issue? Perhaps I > should post on the dev/core mailing list? Greg, you’re on revision 6419 of Rails trunk. You want the 1-2-stable branch instead. jeremy ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 4:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/6 "2007-04-05T04:59:44Z")
oh, I wasn’t sure how to look up the SVN revision number for the 1.2.3release and someone suggested to reference it via [http://dev.rubyonrails.org/browser/tags](http://dev.rubyonrails.org/browser/tags) this link. The deployment technique from Mike C. at the bottom section (“The Cadillac Approach”) of [http://clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/2007/01/18#ManagingVersionsWithCap](http://clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/2007/01/18#ManagingVersionsWithCap) that I’m following seems to require you put in such a SVN revision number. Any suggestions how I should reference the stable release via an SVN revision number Jeremy? thanks Greg ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2007, 9:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/7 "2007-04-05T09:13:11Z")
On 4/4/07, Greg H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > oh, I wasn’t sure how to look up the SVN revision number for the 1.2.3 > release and someone suggested to reference it via > [http://dev.rubyonrails.org/browser/tags](http://dev.rubyonrails.org/browser/tags) this link. The > deployment technique from Mike C. at the bottom section (“The Cadillac > Approach”) of > [http://clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/2007/01/18#ManagingVersionsWithCap](http://clarkware.com/cgi/blosxom/2007/01/18#ManagingVersionsWithCap) > that I’m following seems to require you put in such a SVN revision number. > > Any suggestions how I should reference the stable release via an SVN > revision number Jeremy? Each release is tagged; you don’t have to track revisions. [http://svn.rubyonrails.org/rails/tags/rel\_1-2-3](http://svn.rubyonrails.org/rails/tags/rel_1-2-3) is the 1.2.3 release. jeremy ---
**Author:** ![greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@greg](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/greg)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2007, 10:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/status-500-internal-server-error-a-session-key-is-require/102738/8 "2007-04-04T22:59:11Z")
PS. Perhaps there was a 1.2.2 to 1.2.3 upgrade script/command I was supposed to run but didn’t on my application? Anyone know whether there was a requirement to do this?