Logging Production Exceptions in Rails

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Brandon Liu

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Jul 22, 2012, 5:14:16 PM7/22/12
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Hi all,

I'm curious how all of you manage your production exceptions in Rails. What sort of infrastructure do you have set up to log and track your production exceptions?

I have a small Rails 3.0.7 app that has been running on Linode for about a year now. I haven't spent that much time researching or investing in good production exception handling infrastructure because it's a relatively low-traffic application, but whenever I do get production exceptions, I'm frustrated by the amount of work it takes to replicate the error just so that I can get a stack trace (and sometimes I can't replicate easily!)

I feel like it shouldn't be that hard to write some code that will log relevant information about an exception (stack trace, URL, logged in user, timestamp) and email it to me. I've spent some time researching and I didn't seem to find any robust solutions. I'd appreciate any advice that people can give here!

Thanks,
Brandon

Brian Cardarella

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Jul 22, 2012, 5:28:28 PM7/22/12
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We're using http://exceptional.io

They are the same company that now owns Airbrake (formerly Hoptoad)

We prefer Exceptional for its simple to use interface.

----------------------
Brian Cardarella
Principal at DockYard
Visit us: http://dockyard.com
Call us: (855) DOCK-YRD
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Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DockYard
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Jeremy Weiskotten

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Jul 22, 2012, 6:24:42 PM7/22/12
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A good low-budget (free for low traffic) solution is Errbit, which you can have up and running on Heroku in just a few minutes. 

Ryan Dlugosz

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Jul 22, 2012, 6:37:33 PM7/22/12
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These are good suggestions - need to investigate them for myself.

I've always just used the exception_notification gem, which is configured to send exception reports to you via email whenever one happens in prod. Not terribly scalable, but it works. -RD

Eric Beland

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Jul 22, 2012, 7:21:11 PM7/22/12
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Daniel Higginbotham, a Boston Ruby Group member, has created a nice (free) rubygem solution which handles logging and emails. It is searchable with a nice webui, as well.

Brandon Liu

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Jul 22, 2012, 11:32:16 PM7/22/12
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Sweet, I just got Errbit up and running, and looks like it'll work pretty well for us! Thanks for the tips! I appreciate everyone's help :)

Brandon

Dylan Cashman

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Jul 23, 2012, 12:08:34 AM7/23/12
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+1 for exception_notification.  There's a railscast about it: http://railscasts.com/episodes/104-exception-notifications-revised

I found it really easy to get working and to customize.
Dylan Cashman
Annkissam - Mission Driven Systems
www.annkissam.com

One Broadway, 14th Floor
Cambridge, MA 02142
Cell (preferred): 617-999-3634
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Fax: 617-507-5922

andynu

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Jul 24, 2012, 5:06:52 PM7/24/12
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+1 for exception_notification for immediate resolution needs of critical systems

We also use Splunk for monitoring & aggregate statistics across all our apps; sweet but expensive.
Brandon


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Dan Croak

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Jul 24, 2012, 5:22:30 PM7/24/12
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Splunk is great for logging. Haven't used it much personally for error
catching. There's a free version of Splunk here:

https://www.splunkstorm.com
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>> Annkissam - Mission Driven Systems
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>> Cambridge, MA 02142
>> Cell (preferred): 617-999-3634
>> Office: 617-401-2480, ext. 708
>> Fax: 617-507-5922
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