[OSM-dev] Handling 500 errors

[Tom Hughes]

In message <1188516625.28903.234.camel at localhost>
          Dave Hansen <dave at sr71.net> wrote:

> The TIGER upload gets a 500 error back from the server about every 1,000
> uploads.  I want to be sure to be nice to the server, so what's an
> appropriate action to take when we start to get these?
> 
> Right now, I sleep for 2 seconds, and double the sleep for every
> consecutive error, up to 7 times when I just stop the upload (this
> hasn't happened just yet).
> 
> What do these errors actually _mean_?  Is the server just overloaded?
> Can we teach the server to handle these a bit more gracefully so the
> clients don't have to?

They usually mean that something threw an exception in the ruby code
and nothing caught it. If I have details I can go look at the logs
and try and figure out the cause.

> Can the server detect when it is getting into these conditions, and
> perhaps return 503 errors?

How will that help? A 500 error doesn't mean "server too busy" it
just means "Help I don't know what the hell just happened".

Tom

-- 
Tom Hughes (tom at compton.nu)
http://www.compton.nu/