New Rails Features break FastCGI support?

[h3rald]

Yesterday I noticed that the source of my dispatch.fcgi file was displayed when accessing my site, while it should be properly handled via FastCGI. I immediately opened a ticket but after 12 hours I didn't get a reply yet (not even a "we're working on it"). I didn't change anything myself in the past few days, however I noticed that a new page has been added to cPanel.

From this page, it should be possible to automatically start a "Rails Server" (Mongrel?) for each Rails application in my account on a separate port and then setup a rewrite (to remove the port, essentially).

While I really like this new feature (if I understood it correctly), there seems to be a few problems with it, namely:

- My site has been "offline" (or better, unusable), for the past 12 hours or more
- It seems that FastCGI support has been completely disable (which matters to me, as until now I *thought* Rails apps could only run via FastCGI on BlueHost)
- This new "feature" would be really nice... if only it worked as expected. At the moment clicking "Run" doesn't actually start any Mongrel/other server instance at all
- I understand BlueHost staff may be busy right now, but I would have really appreciated if:
- Someone actually sent me an email about the *possibility* of this new feature and some potential problems concerning it (unlike others, I'd be very happy to take down my site even for two days if I knew they'd support Mongrel! Provided that I know it in advance!)
- FastCGI support would not have been disabled suddely, causing havoc, panic and traffic loss
- Somebody instructed Technical Support to "get ready" to handle support requests concerning this issue promptly.

Does someone have any idea/suggestion?

Thanks in advance.

[Early Out]

Only one suggestion - for immediate problems, don't submit tickets. Use Live Chat.

[dkf2112]

In live chat for this issue I just got shrugs and was told to file a ticket. It is ridiculous that BlueHost can't warn people of pending changes. I'm in the same boat as you - my rails apps no longer work and I depend on them. It really makes me wonder if I can continue with shared hosting.

[h3rald]

I just finished my live chat session and they solved the problem, actually! Apparently they upgraded to Apache2 (did you know that? I didn't) and the AddHandler directive changed from Apache1.3... now it works fine!!

[Early Out]

Glad you got it sorted.

I tend to agree that BH is a little lax in the "warning about pending changes" department, but the Live Chat folks are usually superb at helping you cure the "upgrade blues." :)

[dkf2112]

Can you post the details of what they told you? Did you get the mongrel stuff to work or just the FCGI via dispatch

[felgall]

It was probably a matter of only being broken while the upgrade was actually in progress.

[t12345]

The Live Chat guy told me that it was pointless chatting with me because I was not considering the problem to be in my application. I have checked everything he asked me to and I was not being mean to him or anything like that.
Well it turned out that the problem was not in my application but in their new Rails feature.
I got tired fighting with the Bluehost support every time I have a problem so I moved my business.

[Early Out]

I'm sure they're heartbroken.

[t12345]

I know that they don't care about my ~$10 a month.

[Early Out]

The money isn't what matters, of course. In my experience, a user who ends up "fighting with ... support every time [he has] a problem" isn't worth keeping. A user who starts off every support call loaded for bear, itching for a fight, ends up consuming an inordinate amount of support resources. In fact, some businesses figure out which users are taking most of their support time, and simply dump them. Seems brutal, but it's the smart move, economically. (I don't have any reason to think that BH does this, mind you.)

Most people have had an excellent experience with BH support. If you always had a problem, it's probably best if you and BH part company.

[t12345]

To be honest there were not that many problems for the 2 years I was using bluehost. The most annoying part is that every single time the support will try to convince you that the problem is in your application even though you are pointing them the issue on their side.
I filed less than 10 tickets for these two years. All of them were for real problems with the service. You be the Judge if I am a complaining kind of customer not worth doing business with.

[Early Out]

Well, I hope you're happy with your new host. Since you're not a BH customer any longer, should we delete your user account on these forums?

[t12345]

Not yet. I will have to move my domain too. So I will keep complaining a little bit more :)

[Early Out]

Just jerking your chain... ;):)

[t12345]

I may even keep this account as a backup (BH is not that bad after all). That of course if they don't throw me out for complaining about their support in public ;)

[Early Out]

No, they're usually content to send out a couple of guys to break your thumbs. :)

[h3rald]

FastCGI is now working fine. The new Mongrel feature is actually being developed and not operative yet, that's what they told me. I posted about this *accident* on my blog, anyway:

http://www.h3rald.com/blog/apache2-upgrade

[rogerdpack]

Apparently there are some servers which have upgraded to apache 2, and also installed a different module to handle fcgi.
This means that the default fcgi in your .htaccess won't work (the one created when rails starts).

So...
change it to be this
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
at the top
and
add the f for fcgi
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi [QSA,L]
at the bottom.
GL.