# Timeout::timeout(time) question - or.. What am I missing here?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/timeout-timeout-time-question-or-what-am-i-missing-here/144797>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 2, 2008, 5:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/timeout-timeout-time-question-or-what-am-i-missing-here/144797 "2008-08-02T05:19:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mikel\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mikel\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mikel_L)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 5:19am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/timeout-timeout-time-question-or-what-am-i-missing-here/144797/1 "2008-08-02T05:19:17Z")

</div>

OK, I have a rake task that runs a bit of code which connects up from  
a Rails App to a remote data source over a WAN to replicate down some  
data from an Oracle server through the Ruby OCI8 library.

This task is expected to take about 1 second per item replicated. I  
do it in 1000 item lots. Occasionally the line hangs, or the  
connection drops or some part of hell gets too cold, and I loose the  
link, at which point we get hanging processes waiting for failures.  
To handle this I wrap this whole each block in a time out block set to  
2000 seconds.

Each replication is atomic, so as it completes one, it marks it done.  
Any that don’t get marked completed get re-replicated. Replicating  
the same thing twice isn’t a problem (but I am pretty sure I have  
coded around that).

Problem is, it hangs. I have two processes that put time stamps in  
their lock files of 16 and 8 hours ago. Longer than 2000 seconds.

The rake task looks like:

task :replicate =\> :environment do  
replicate  
end

def replicate  
@lock\_file = “#{RAILS\_ROOT}/tmp/replication.lock”  
begin  
if File.exist?(@lock\_file)  
puts “Lock file exists #{@lock\_file}”  
else  
File.open(@lock\_file, ‘w’) { |f| f.puts("#{Time.now} - Started  
replication")}  
@created\_lock\_file = true  
Replication.replicate!  
end  
ensure  
File.unlink(@lock\_file) if @created\_lock\_file  
end  
end

The replication code looks like this:

def Replication.do\_replication  
Replication.timeout(2000, “Replication – Timeout error”) do  
self.unreplicated.each do |replication|  
REPLICATION\_LOG.info("#{Time.now} - Replicating id  
#{replication.id}")  
replication.replicate!  
REPLICATION\_LOG.flush  
end  
end  
end

def Replication.timeout(time, message)  
begin  
Timeout::timeout(time) do  
yield  
end  
rescue Timeout::Error =\> e  
REPLICATION\_LOG.error("#{Time.now} - Timeout error -  
#{message}\n#{e}")  
end  
end

I can’t see how that is still running after 2000 seconds. Ideas anyone?

Mikel

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mikel\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mikel\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mikel_L)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 8:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/timeout-timeout-time-question-or-what-am-i-missing-here/144797/2 "2008-08-02T08:42:03Z")

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On Aug 1, 2008, at 9:17 PM, Mikel L. wrote:

> I can’t see how that is still running after 2000 seconds. Ideas  
> anyone?

windows?

a @ [http://codeforpeople.com/](http://codeforpeople.com/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mikel\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mikel\_L](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Mikel_L)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2008, 2:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/timeout-timeout-time-question-or-what-am-i-missing-here/144797/3 "2008-08-02T14:08:23Z")

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On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 4:38 PM, ara.t.howard [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> On Aug 1, 2008, at 9:17 PM, Mikel L. wrote:
> 
> > I can’t see how that is still running after 2000 seconds. Ideas anyone?  
> > windows?

Heya Ara,

Nup, on a linux box as a test bed. Running Ruby 1.8.6 patch level 36  
on Ubuntu 2.6.22-14

Mikel