# Strange Issue w/ incorrect controller invocation for nested routes using the same controller name

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 24, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029 "2008-11-24T18:39:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/1 "2008-11-24T18:39:52Z")

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Hi, I’ve been battling a very strange and irritating bug for a long  
time now. The issue is the following:

I have namespaced my controllers in routes.rb

- map.resources :login, :collection =\> [:login, :logout]
- map.namespace :partner do |p|  
p.resources :login, :collection =\> [:login, :logout]  
end

As such, I have two distinct controllers app/controllers/  
login\_controller and app/controllers/partner/login\_controller.

I’m running Apache + Passenger 2.0.3. When apache is freshly  
restarted, requests to /partner/login invoke the proper controller.  
However, after some period of time (or some series of  
actions…whatever it is, I cannot isolate it), the wrong controller  
will be invoked when requesting /partner/login.

Reaching back into my logs, I see no difference in the logging that  
rails performed.

\*\*\* Log entry before bug starts showing up

Processing LoginController#index (for xx.xx.xx.xx at 2008-11-24  
10:33:26) [GET]  
Session ID: bb63a070c1fa56a703018fa922359146  
Parameters: {“action”=\>“index”, “controller”=\>“partner/login”}  
Rendering template within layouts/application  
Rendering partner/login/index  
Completed in 0.00188 (531 reqs/sec) | Rendering: 0.00178 (94%) | DB:  
0.00180 (95%) | 200 OK [[https://myapp/partner/login](https://myapp/partner/login)]

\*\*\* Log entry after bug has started showing up

Processing LoginController#index (for xx.xx.xx.xx at 2008-11-24  
12:26:35) [GET]  
Session ID: 5bdeff99bd72fe94cb8b80fd9b6beff6  
Parameters: {“action”=\>“index”, “controller”=\>“partner/login”}  
Rendering template within layouts/static\_dashboard  
Rendering login/index  
Completed in 0.00286 (349 reqs/sec) | Rendering: 0.00274 (95%) | DB:  
0.00429 (150%) | 200 OK [[https://myapp/partner/login](https://myapp/partner/login)]

What kills me is that in parameters, the proper controller/action are  
being identified. But if you look at the succeeding lines, you’ll see  
different templates being rendered.

This has been happening to me for quite a while. Even prior to moving  
to Passenger quite a while ago, I saw this same bug crop up in  
production when using a mongrel\_cluster solution behind Pound. So I’m  
fairly certain that it’s not related to Passenger. I have not seen it  
arise in my local dev environment (running mongrel).

I realize this is quite the shot in the dark, but I was curious if  
anyone had any thoughts whatsoever on the source of this problem, or  
if you’ve encountered anything similar in the past.

Thanks for any help.

-John

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/2 "2008-11-24T18:42:49Z")

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Also, worth noting that the app is running rails 2.1.0 currently. I  
also had this problem when it was previously running 2.0.2. Upgrading  
to 2.1.2 is potentially an option, but I’m wary of just trying  
something like that in production when I don’t fully understand what  
the problem is, so I’m holding off on that in the meantime.

-John

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/3 "2008-11-24T19:02:51Z")

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On 24 Nov 2008, at 17:41, John T. wrote:

> Also, worth noting that the app is running rails 2.1.0 currently. I  
> also had this problem when it was previously running 2.0.2. Upgrading  
> to 2.1.2 is potentially an option, but I’m wary of just trying  
> something like that in production when I don’t fully understand what  
> the problem is, so I’m holding off on that in the meantime.

Are the classes both named LoginController or is one of them  
Partner::LoginController ?

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/4 "2008-11-24T19:46:55Z")

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On 24 Nov 2008, at 18:31, John T. wrote:

> end
> 
> Wonder if wrapping the other in module Partner instead of prefixing  
> the classname with the module would have any effect…

I suspect the complexities of how automatic constant loading work  
means that if Partner::LoginController isn’t loaded but  
LoginController is then it would find the wrong one. using  
require\_dependency (eg in application.rb) in forcing rails to load  
both controllers might help.

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/5 "2008-11-24T19:32:11Z")

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One is defined like:

class Partner::LoginController \< ApplicationController

end

The other is defined like:

class LoginController \< ApplicationController

end

Wonder if wrapping the other in module Partner instead of prefixing  
the classname with the module would have any effect…

-John

On Nov 24, 1:02 pm, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 8:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/6 "2008-11-24T20:36:57Z")

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Sent from my iPhone

On 24 Nov 2008, at 19:06, John T. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> end
> 
> Should those calls be inside or outside of the ApplicationController?  
> Also, are the paths correct, or should I fully prefix them with  
> RAILS\_ROOT?

Outside the class and you don’t need a path or anything

> I’ve never directly invoked require\_dependency before…for what  
> purposes do you find it useful (aside from a potential solution to my  
> struggles)?

It’s like require but plays nicely with the dependencies system. Use  
it whenever you’re requiring something that could be magically loaded  
(models, controllers etc)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/7 "2008-11-24T21:57:17Z")

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Hey Frederick,

When I place the require\_dependency statements above my  
ApplicationController reference, the initial start of the server blows  
up. This sort of makes sense to me, because as application.rb is  
loaded, it will encounter the require\_dependency lines first, which I  
believe will try to load those other controllers. Since, at this  
point in time, ApplicationController is undefined, LoginController and  
Partner::LoginController will both fail because ApplicationController  
(their base class) has yet to be defined.

Make sense?

Should I put these require\_dep lines beneath it? This seems to do the  
trick (at least in the short-term).

For your (and everyone else’s) edification, I think this is going to  
work. I noticed, as I’ve been working with this on a staging server  
today, that the bug seemed to crop up when I re-deployed. In other  
words, fresh deploy (w/ clean apache restart), we’re in good shape.  
Successive deploy (with app restart via touch tmp/restart.txt), we see  
the error. So perhaps it is a passenger-related bug (although I can  
definitely recall this happening with a mongrel\_cluster solution in  
the past as well).

Well I chucked those two require\_dependency lines at the bottom of  
application.rb, redeployed (without restarting apache), and voila, the  
partner/login page was now loading properly (after failing prior to  
the redeployment). So I have my fingers crossed that I haven’t merely  
been tricked (or rather convinced myself this is the solution) in the  
interim.

Thanks for the guidance Frederick!

-John

On Nov 24, 2:35 pm, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 8:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/8 "2008-11-24T20:06:56Z")

</div>

So, to be clear, you’re suggesting that I place the following at the  
top of my application.rb file?

class ApplicationController \< ActionController::Base  
require\_dependency ‘partner/login\_controller’  
require\_dependency ‘login\_controller’

# …

end

Should those calls be inside or outside of the ApplicationController?  
Also, are the paths correct, or should I fully prefix them with  
RAILS\_ROOT?

I’ve never directly invoked require\_dependency before…for what  
purposes do you find it useful (aside from a potential solution to my  
struggles)?

Thanks so much!

-John

On Nov 24, 1:45 pm, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@johnt519](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnt519)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 11:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/strange-issue-w-incorrect-controller-invocation-for-nested-routes-using-the-same-controller-name/154029/9 "2008-11-24T23:29:08Z")

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Yeah beneath would be better. You just need to ensure they’re loaded  
early enough

Sent from my iPhone