# Chef-solo run hangs while attempting to restart service

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-solo-run-hangs-while-attempting-to-restart-service/1262>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [August 4, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-solo-run-hangs-while-attempting-to-restart-service/1262 "2009-08-04T16:25:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Graeme\_Mathieson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/graeme_mathieson/32/914_2.png) [@Graeme\_Mathieson](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Graeme_Mathieson)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-solo-run-hangs-while-attempting-to-restart-service/1262/1 "2009-08-04T16:25:15Z")

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Hi,

I'm seeing an issue when I'm running chef-solo bringing up a new  
server. Most of the recipes run OK, but when it comes to starting up  
a service, it just pauses. Looking at it on another ssh session, I  
see there's no activity, and there's an unreaped zombie called (for  
example) chef-indexer. Same thing happens with couchdb which is using  
the Ubuntu-supplied init script, so hopefully it's not just poor init  
script writing skills on my part!

When I then run `sudo /etc/init.d/chef-indexer restart` (or whatever,  
for the service that's currently causing it to stick) it'll carry on  
working its way through the recipes, and the zombie will have  
disappeared.

I'll dig into it a bit further over the next few days, but I just  
thought I'd throw it out there, see if anybody else had seen this too?

G

--  
Graeme Mathieson  
Managing Director  
Rubaidh Ltd: Scottish for Ruby on Rails

Follow us on Twitter: [http://twitter.com/rubaidh](http://twitter.com/rubaidh) and \<[http://twitter.com/mathie](http://twitter.com/mathie)

> 

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**Author:** ![Joel\_Merrick](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/joel_merrick/32/893_2.png) [@Joel\_Merrick](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Joel_Merrick)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-solo-run-hangs-while-attempting-to-restart-service/1262/2 "2009-08-04T16:27:32Z")

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On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Graeme Mathieson[mathie@woss.name](mailto:mathie@woss.name) wrote:

> I'll dig into it a bit further over the next few days, but I just thought  
> I'd throw it out there, see if anybody else had seen this too?  
> G

Yes, I have seen this behaviour exhibited when I first ran the  
chef-solo on a client. It just hung until I restarted it.

Joel

--  
$ echo "kpfmAdpoofdufevq/dp/vl" | perl -pe 's/(.)/chr(ord($1)-1)/ge'

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Graeme\_Mathieson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/graeme_mathieson/32/914_2.png) [@Graeme\_Mathieson](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Graeme_Mathieson)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-solo-run-hangs-while-attempting-to-restart-service/1262/3 "2009-08-04T16:41:21Z")

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On 4 Aug 2009, at 17:27, Joel Merrick wrote:

> Yes, I have seen this behaviour exhibited when I first ran the  
> chef-solo on a client. It just hung until I restarted it.

Ah, good, at least it's not my deranged imagination. 🙂

G

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**Author:** ![Sig\_Lange](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/sig_lange/32/876_2.png) [@Sig\_Lange](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Sig_Lange)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/chef-solo-run-hangs-while-attempting-to-restart-service/1262/4 "2009-08-04T18:16:04Z")

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I do know that couchdb init script incorrectly leaks FDs causing chef to  
hang.

I opened a bug on couchdb at  
[https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-443](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-443)

That link contains a patch to fix the rc.d -- so feel free to put that into  
your recipe.

~ Sig  
On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Graeme Mathieson [mathie@woss.name](mailto:mathie@woss.name) wrote:

> On 4 Aug 2009, at 17:27, Joel Merrick wrote:
> 
> Yes, I have seen this behaviour exhibited when I first ran the
> 
> > chef-solo on a client. It just hung until I restarted it.
> 
> Ah, good, at least it's not my deranged imagination. 🙂
> 
> G