# Couchdb randomly dying

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [December 28, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329 "2009-12-28T22:51:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Matt\_Matson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/matt_matson/32/866_2.png) [@Matt\_Matson](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Matt_Matson)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329/1 "2009-12-28T22:51:05Z")

</div>

Has anyone noticed couchdb randomly dying? The logs aren’t helpful at all. I’ll continue to look into it… just thought someone may have encountered this problem before.

BTW, I’m running on CentOS 5.3…

[me@chef001 ~]# rpm -qa | grep chef  
rubygem-chef-0.7.10-1.el5  
rubygem-chef-server-0.7.10-1.el5  
rubygem-chef-server-slice-0.7.10-1.el5

[me@chef001 ~]# couchdb -V  
couchdb - Apache CouchDB 0.9.1

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arjuna\_Christensen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Arjuna\_Christensen](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Arjuna_Christensen)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329/2 "2009-12-28T22:53:04Z")

</div>

Hello,

On 29/12/2009, at 11:51 AM, m2 wrote:

> Has anyone noticed couchdb randomly dying? The logs aren't helpful at all. I'll continue to look into it.. just thought someone may have encountered this problem before.

The logs certainly are helpful, just plentiful. It's a massive tuple, and would help with diagnosis.

> BTW, I'm running on CentOS 5.3..
> 
> [me@chef001 ~]# rpm -qa | grep chef  
> rubygem-chef-0.7.10-1.el5  
> rubygem-chef-server-0.7.10-1.el5  
> rubygem-chef-server-slice-0.7.10-1.el5
> 
> [me@chef001 ~]# couchdb -V  
> couchdb - Apache CouchDB 0.9.1

If possible, I'd suggest upgrading to CouchDB 0.10, although 0.9.1 was substantially more stable than 0.8.x

--  
Arjuna Christensen, Software Development Engineer  
Opscode, Inc.  
E: [aj@opscode.com](mailto:aj@opscode.com)

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**Author:** ![Adam\_Jacob](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/adam_jacob/32/292_2.png) [@Adam\_Jacob](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Adam_Jacob)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2009, 11:05pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329/3 "2009-12-28T23:05:47Z")

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
Hash: SHA1

m2 wrote:

> Has anyone noticed couchdb randomly dying? The logs aren't helpful at all. I'll continue to look into it.. just thought someone may have encountered this problem before.
> 
> BTW, I'm running on CentOS 5.3..
> 
> [me@chef001 ~]# rpm -qa | grep chef  
> rubygem-chef-0.7.10-1.el5  
> rubygem-chef-server-0.7.10-1.el5  
> rubygem-chef-server-slice-0.7.10-1.el5
> 
> [me@chef001 ~]# couchdb -V  
> couchdb - Apache CouchDB 0.9.1

Can you confirm that you are compacting couch?

Adam

* * *

Opscode, Inc.  
Adam Jacob, CTO  
T: (206) 508-7449 E: [adam@opscode.com](mailto:adam@opscode.com)  
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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Matt\_Matson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/matt_matson/32/866_2.png) [@Matt\_Matson](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Matt_Matson)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2009, 10:30pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329/4 "2009-12-30T22:30:43Z")

</div>

Thanks for the feedback. BTW, didn't mean to slam couchdb logging.. just  
that I'm not familiar with reading them yet.

So, I did add a recipe to compact couchdb. After you metnioned that, I  
noticed it was growing excessively large. File size went from ~2GB to 2MB  
after compacting!

I'll continue to monitor the couch instance and report back if it continues  
to die. Thanks for the tips!

On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 3:05 PM, Adam Jacob [adam@opscode.com](mailto:adam@opscode.com) wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> m2 wrote:
> 
> > Has anyone noticed couchdb randomly dying? The logs aren't helpful at  
> > all. I'll continue to look into it.. just thought someone may have  
> > encountered this problem before.
> > 
> > BTW, I'm running on CentOS 5.3..
> > 
> > [me@chef001 ~]# rpm -qa | grep chef  
> > rubygem-chef-0.7.10-1.el5  
> > rubygem-chef-server-0.7.10-1.el5  
> > rubygem-chef-server-slice-0.7.10-1.el5
> > 
> > [me@chef001 ~]# couchdb -V  
> > couchdb - Apache CouchDB 0.9.1
> 
> Can you confirm that you are compacting couch?
> 
> Adam
> 
> * * *
> 
> Opscode, Inc.  
> Adam Jacob, CTO  
> T: (206) 508-7449 E: [adam@opscode.com](mailto:adam@opscode.com)  
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--  
Matt Matson  
[m2matson@gmail.com](mailto:m2matson@gmail.com)  
415.254.2777

AIM: flagsout

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![scottmlikens](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/scottmlikens/32/126_2.png) [@scottmlikens](https://discourse.chef.io/u/scottmlikens)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/couchdb-randomly-dying/1329/5 "2009-12-30T23:07:14Z")

</div>

Hi Matt,

If you add to the Chef Server's runlist chef::server running the latest cookbooks from [GitHub - chef-boneyard/cookbooks: DEPRECATED: This repository has been split up into separate repositories by cookbook under the "opscode-cookbooks" organization.](http://github.com/opscode/cookbooks.git) it will do a compaction if your chef.couch is \> 100megs on each client run; which will greatly help in avoiding said situation.

Additionally there is a bug in apache's system [[COUCHDB-275] couch crashes erlang vm under heavy load - ASF JIRA](http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-275) ... basically you would need to update erlang in order to fix it... or you run couchdb 0.8, and that with the bugged erlang can cause 20gb couch files that won't compact.

But basically if you use the chef::server recipe it will help ensure your couchdb won't grow too big

Scott

On Dec 30, 2009, at 2:30 PM, Matt Matson wrote:

> Thanks for the feedback. BTW, didn't mean to slam couchdb logging.. just that I'm not familiar with reading them yet.
> 
> So, I did add a recipe to compact couchdb. After you metnioned that, I noticed it was growing excessively large. File size went from ~2GB to 2MB after compacting!
> 
> I'll continue to monitor the couch instance and report back if it continues to die. Thanks for the tips!
> 
> On Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 3:05 PM, Adam Jacob [adam@opscode.com](mailto:adam@opscode.com) wrote:  
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----  
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> m2 wrote:
> 
> > Has anyone noticed couchdb randomly dying? The logs aren't helpful at all. I'll continue to look into it.. just thought someone may have encountered this problem before.
> > 
> > BTW, I'm running on CentOS 5.3..
> > 
> > [me@chef001 ~]# rpm -qa | grep chef  
> > rubygem-chef-0.7.10-1.el5  
> > rubygem-chef-server-0.7.10-1.el5  
> > rubygem-chef-server-slice-0.7.10-1.el5
> > 
> > [me@chef001 ~]# couchdb -V  
> > couchdb - Apache CouchDB 0.9.1
> 
> Can you confirm that you are compacting couch?
> 
> Adam
> 
> * * *
> 
> Opscode, Inc.  
> Adam Jacob, CTO  
> T: (206) 508-7449 E: [adam@opscode.com](mailto:adam@opscode.com)  
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----  
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> =BoMi  
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> --  
> Matt Matson  
> [m2matson@gmail.com](mailto:m2matson@gmail.com)  
> 415.254.2777
> 
> AIM: flagsout  
> !DSPAM:4b3bd49e114941804284693!