Error installing application::passenger_apache2

Hi all,
I am using the application cookbook, and following the
documentation to install a ROR stack. I have correctly set up the databag,
and the rails install seems to go okay, but the passenger install doesn’t?
however, it errors saying “FATAL: NoMethodError: undefined method `[]’ for
nil:NilClass”

tracing it back it points to this in the stack trace:
/var/chef/cache/cookbooks/application/recipes/passenger_apache2.rb:27:in
`from_file’

and finally this:
server_aliases = [ “#{app[‘id’]}.#{node[‘domain’]}”, node[‘fqdn’]

app[‘id’] is set correctly to my_app in my databag - it works everywhere
else.
running shef, and querying node domain and fqdn return .internal records
from ec2, this looks and should be fine?

Here is a pastebin with full stack trace.
http://pastebin.com/VCeZV12v

Any ideas on what is going on?

Many thanks
Will