Ruby script 'Killed'

Question

I am running a ruby script from the command line. The script downloads a file (15 MB), unzips it, parses it as JSON and then populates a mysql db with it.

When I run it, I get a simple 'Killed' message back. What's going on? How can I find out what the problem is?

I am using it on an EC2 micro instance.

Thanks

Here's the script

require 'open-uri'
require 'zlib'
require 'json'

require_relative '../db/db.rb'

dl = open('........')
ex = Zlib::GzipReader.new dl
json = JSON.parse ex.read
events = json['resultsPage']['results']['event']

puts "starting to parse #{events.count} event(s)..."
created = 0
updated = 0

events[1..10].each do |event|
    performances = event['performance']
    performances.each do  |performance|
        ar_show = Show.find_or_initialize_by_songkick_id performance['id']
        ar_show.artist_name = performance['displayName']
        ar_show.new_record? ? created += 1 : updated += 1
        ar_show.save!
    end
end

Import.create :updated => updated, :new => created
puts "complete. new: #{created}   -   updated: #{updated}"

Answer 1

You are almost certainly running out of memory, as a micro instance doesn't have much memory or swap space available. I've had this happen with Perl programs. Dynamic languages can use a lot of memory when processing large chunks of data.

The best way to test this theory is to spin up a small or large instance for under an hour (so you won't pay much for it) and try the script there. If it runs, you know that a micro instance is too small for your program to run on.