Any ideas why Thinking Sphinx Rake tasks are not running?

Question

I'm finding that Thinking Sphinx sometimes errors out when I try to run its Rake tasks. Sometimes the tasks work fine, and sometimes I get errors like the one below.

I'm running the tasks as a normal user, not root. Not using sudo.

In the example below, searchd is still running after the Rake task fails.

I've also seen similar errors with ts:rebuild.

Has anyone else seen this?

I'm using Sphinx 0.9.9-release (r2117)

I'm using Thinking Sphinx 1.4.4 instead of the latest version because I'm on Rails 2.3.11.

---

$ rake ts:stop RAILS_ENV=production
(in /var/www/blog_app/releases/20110425053509)
rake aborted!
execution expired

(See full trace by running task with --trace)
[ethan@apphost current]$ rake ts:stop RAILS_ENV=production --trace
(in /var/www/blog_app/releases/20110425053509)
** Invoke ts:stop (first_time)
** Invoke thinking_sphinx:stop (first_time)
** Invoke thinking_sphinx:app_env (first_time)
** Execute thinking_sphinx:app_env
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
** Execute thinking_sphinx:stop
rake aborted!
execution expired
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/1.8/timeout.rb:60
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/thinking-sphinx-1.4.4/lib/thinking_sphinx/tasks.rb:58
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:636:in `call'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:636:in `execute'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:631:in `each'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:631:in `execute'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:597:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:590:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:607:in `invoke_prerequisites'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:604:in `each'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:604:in `invoke_prerequisites'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:596:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:590:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:583:in `invoke'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2051:in `invoke_task'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `top_level'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `each'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2029:in `top_level'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2023:in `top_level'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2001:in `run'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:2068:in `standard_exception_handling'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/lib/rake.rb:1998:in `run'
/opt/ruby-enterprise-1.8.7-2010.01/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.8.7/bin/rake:31
/opt/ruby/bin/rake:19:in `load'
/opt/ruby/bin/rake:19

Answer 1

I believe this error is caused when you have a search daemon already running.

Try

ps | grep searchd

if that gives you something like this...

73470 ttys002    0:00.03 searchd --pidfile --config /Users/dwickwire/Projects/production/config/development.sphinx.conf
81907 ttys002    0:00.00 grep searchd

then kill the searchd

sudo kill -9 process_id

process_id in my case would be 73470

Then try rake ts:rebuild again.