Passenger Error: The application spawner server exited unexpectedly: Unexpected end-of-file detected

Question

This was working just the other day, but I just updated my code to the review server which runs Passenger 2.2.4 and my 2.3.4 rails app now can't boot on that box.

Passenger reports:

Passenger encountered the following error:

The application spawner server exited unexpectedly: Unexpected end-of-file detected.

Exception class:
PhusionPassenger::Railz::ApplicationSpawner::Error
Backtrace:
#  File  Line  Location
0  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/railz/application_spawner.rb  218  in `start'

1  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/spawn_manager.rb  261  in `spawn_rails_application'

2  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/abstract_server_collection.rb  126  in `lookup_or_add'

3  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/spawn_manager.rb  255  in `spawn_rails_application'

4  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/abstract_server_collection.rb  80  in `synchronize'

5  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/abstract_server_collection.rb  79  in `synchronize'

6  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/spawn_manager.rb  254  in `spawn_rails_application'

7  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/spawn_manager.rb  153  in `spawn_application'

8  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/spawn_manager.rb  286  in `handle_spawn_application'

9  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/abstract_server.rb  351  in `__send__'

10  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/abstract_server.rb  351  in `main_loop'

11  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/lib/phusion_passenger/abstract_server.rb  195  in `start_synchronously'

12  /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/bin/passenger-spawn-server  61  

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Figured it out. I finally checked the main apache error log and discovered there was a problem with one of my gems (facebooker config).

To fix the facebooker issue, make sure there's an entry for your environment in config/facebooker.yml

I think passenger should at least give an option to see more of the stack trace that gets reported in apache's error log. Would have been more helpful.

Answer 2

I got the same obscure error when I had forgotten to initialise the database. If so, try:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rake db:setup