Erlang release with rebar: some issues

Question

1. When I'm trying to run my app using:

# ./rebar clean compile generate
# rel/master/bin/master console

I'm getting the following error:

application: app_name
exited:{shutdown,{app_name}, start, [normal, []]}}
type:permanent
{"kernel pid terminated", application_controler, "{application_start_failure,app_name 
..........

So I can't start my application.

2. Moreover, right after builing release

# rel.... start
# rel.... stop

Will cause error: "Node [email protected] not responding to pings"

While

# rel.... stop <- the same error as above
# rel.... start
# rel.... stop <- is fine (outputs "ok")

App structure:

deps ebin rebar rebar.config src rel

rebar.config

{erl_first_files, []}.
{cover_enabled, true}.
{erl_opts, [debug_info]}.
{sub_dirs, ["rel"]}.
{deps_dir, ["deps]}.
{deps, [some_stable_modules_from_github]}.

reltool.config (from rel folder)

{sys, [
     {lib_dirs, ["../..", "../deps"]},
     {rel, "master", "1",
        [app_name, 
         kernel,
         stdlib,
         stdlib,
         sasl,
         some_stable_modules]},
     {rel, "start_clean", "", [kernel, stdlib]},
     {boot_rel, "master"},
     {profile, embedded},
     {excl_sys_filters, ["^bin/.*", "^erts.*/bin/{dialyzer|typer)"])},
     {app, sasl, ["incl_cond", include]},
     {app, hipe, ["incl_cond", exclude]},
     {app, some_stable_module, ["incl_cond", include]},
     {app, master, ["incl_cond", include]}
   ]}.

{target_dir, "master"}.

{overlay, [
          {mkdir, "log/sasl"},
          {copy, "files/erl", "\{\{erts_vsn\}\}/bin/erl"},
          {copy, "files/nodetool", "\{\{erts_vsn\}\}/bin/nodetool"},
          {copy, "files/master", "bin/master"},
          {copy, "files/app.config", "etc/app.config"},
          {copy, "files/vm.args", "etc/vm.args"}
          ]}.

Two questions:

Why I can start my application using rel/master/bin/master console?
Why I'm getting "node is not responding to pings" error?

thanks!

PS. In general it's a basic application which is created using rebar. I just added a couple modules to work with mongodb.

I'm not sure that you are aware that you cut away the actual error message. It would have helped to see what error you get with regards to app_name. — Daniel Luna

Roberto Aloi Roberto Aloi · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-16T09:29:56

From your reltool.config, it looks like the app_name application is not included in the release. Please ensure that:

{app, app_name, ["incl_cond", include]},

is there. If that doesn't help, try to start your application manually. For example:

erl -pa ebin deps/whatever/ebin ...
> application:start(app_name).

That should give you a hint of what's wrong/missing in the release.

UPDATE: If you cannot start your application manually try and debug it. Assuming that you start a root supervisor in your application module, what happens if you start the supervisor manually? Could you post your .app/.app.src file? The start function from your application module? The eventual start_link function from your supervisor?

PS: You have two "stdlib" entries in your reltool.config

Erlang release with rebar: some issues

1 Answers