Rails server doesn't see code changes and reload files

Question

I noticed that my rails server doesn't reload controllers, models and probably any other files after I change them. I use Vagrant and Rails API, and I found that some people fix this problem by adding below line to the Vagrantfile.

config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
  vb.customize [ "guestproperty", "set", :id, "/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VBoxService/--timesync-set-threshold", 5000 ]
end

It doesn't fix the problem for me. I run out of the ideas what else I can do to solve this problem. I attach files which might be useful for you.

My Gemfile looks like this:

source 'https://rubygems.org'

gem 'rake', '< 11.0'

# Bundle edge Rails instead: gem 'rails', github: 'rails/rails'
gem 'rails', '>= 5.0.0.beta3', '< 5.1'
# Use mysql as the database for Active Record
# gem 'mysql2', '>= 0.3.18', '< 0.5'

# User PostgreSQL as the database for Active Record
gem 'pg', '~> 0.18'

gem 'active_model_serializers'

gem 'rspec-its'

gem 'database_cleaner'

# Use Puma as the app server
gem 'puma'
# Build JSON APIs with ease. Read more: https://github.com/rails/jbuilder
# gem 'jbuilder', '~> 2.0'
# Use Redis adapter to run Action Cable in production
# gem 'redis', '~> 3.0'
# Use ActiveModel has_secure_password
# gem 'bcrypt', '~> 3.1.7'

# Gem allowing using external APIs
gem 'httparty'

# Auth0 gem for authentication using JWT
gem 'knock'

gem 'jwt'

# OpenID Omniauth gem for authenticating Steam users
gem 'omniauth-steam'

# Gem for managing environment variables
gem 'figaro'

# Use Capistrano for deployment
# gem 'capistrano-rails', group: :development

# Use Rack CORS for handling Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), making cross-origin AJAX possible
gem 'rack-cors', :require => 'rack/cors'

group :development, :test do
  # Call 'byebug' anywhere in the code to stop execution and get a debugger console
  gem 'byebug'
  gem 'rspec-rails', '~> 3.0'
  gem 'factory_girl_rails'
  gem 'ffaker'
end

group :test do
  gem 'shoulda-matchers'
  gem 'json-schema'
end

group :development do
  gem 'listen', '~> 2.10'
  # Spring speeds up development by keeping your application running in the background. Read more: https://github.com/rails/spring
  gem 'spring'
  gem 'spring-watcher-listen', '~> 2.0.0'
end

# Windows does not include zoneinfo files, so bundle the tzinfo-data gem
gem 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin, :x64_mingw, :jruby]

I'm sure that I run my server in development mode, because of the beggining of the log

=> Booting Puma
=> Rails 5.0.0.beta3 application starting in development on http://0.0.0.0:3000
=> Run `rails server -h` for more startup options
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
Puma starting in single mode...
* Version 3.1.0 (ruby 2.2.3-p173), codename: El Niño Winter Wonderland
* Min threads: 5, max threads: 5
* Environment: development
* Listening on tcp://0.0.0.0:3000

This is my development.rb file

Rails.application.configure do
  # Settings specified here will take precedence over those in config/application.rb.

  # In the development environment your application's code is reloaded on
  # every request. This slows down response time but is perfect for development
  # since you don't have to restart the web server when you make code changes.
  config.cache_classes = false

  # Do not eager load code on boot.
  config.eager_load = false

  # Show full error reports.
  config.consider_all_requests_local = true

  # Enable/disable caching. By default caching is disabled.
  if Rails.root.join('tmp/caching-dev.txt').exist?
    config.action_controller.perform_caching = true

    config.action_mailer.perform_caching = false

    config.cache_store = :memory_store
    config.public_file_server.headers = {
      'Cache-Control' => 'public, max-age=172800'
    }
  else
    config.action_controller.perform_caching = false

    config.action_mailer.perform_caching = false

    config.cache_store = :null_store
  end

  # Don't care if the mailer can't send.
  config.action_mailer.raise_delivery_errors = false

  # Print deprecation notices to the Rails logger.
  config.active_support.deprecation = :log

  # Raise an error on page load if there are pending migrations.
  config.active_record.migration_error = :page_load


  # Raises error for missing translations
  # config.action_view.raise_on_missing_translations = true

  # Use an evented file watcher to asynchronously detect changes in source code,
  # routes, locales, etc. This feature depends on the listen gem.
  config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::EventedFileUpdateChecker
end

My Vagrantfile

Vagrant.configure(2) do |config|

  if Vagrant.has_plugin?("vagrant-timezone")
    config.timezone.value = "Europe/Warsaw"
  end

  config.vm.box = "ubuntu/trusty64"

  config.vm.network :forwarded_port, guest: 3000, host: 3000
  config.vm.synced_folder "E:/Projekty - Rails", "/home/projekty"

  config.vm.provider "virtualbox" do |vb|
    vb.customize [ "guestproperty", "set", :id, "/VirtualBox/GuestAdd/VBoxService/--timesync-set-threshold", 5000 ]
  end
end

In development.rb file, can you add config.threadsafe! line. Please check it is working or not ? — Mohammad Shahadat Hossain, Mar 12 '16 at 16:01
@MohammadShahadatHossain it causes erorr when I try to start the server. I use rails api, so it probably the reason why, right? — mparkitny, Mar 12 '16 at 16:02
using rails api shouldn't be a problem. There might be some configuration missing that is why the problem occurring. — Mohammad Shahadat Hossain, Mar 12 '16 at 16:09
can you show your `Vagrantfile` file? I think problem is there. — Mohammad Shahadat Hossain, Mar 12 '16 at 16:18
to start the server you need to use `rails s -b 0.0.0.0` so it recognize the public interface. Did you tried that? — Mohammad Shahadat Hossain, Mar 12 '16 at 16:40
@MohammadShahadatHossain I always start server using this command. — mparkitny, Mar 12 '16 at 16:42

score 99 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 18 '20 at 21:16

99

Add the following to config/environments/development.rb

#config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::EventedFileUpdateChecker
config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::FileUpdateChecker

FileUpdateChecker will detect by polling the change of the file.

edited Oct 18 '20 at 21:16

Christopher Oezbek

23,994
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answered Apr 14 '16 at 07:54

pocari

1,141
1
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6

changed in my development.rb and works like a charm - thanks – Hannes Apr 15 '16 at 15:04
Worked for me too. I've been suffering for more than 2 weeks thinking it's a bug with Rails 5 beta. Thank you! – Abdulaziz May 12 '16 at 10:45
4

hi, Rev3rse. Using Virtual Box' shared folder, this problem has occured. Because OS (in running vm) can't detect file change event in shared folders. – pocari May 13 '16 at 02:43
1

I use a shared folder too. No Vagrant, just Windows 10 as a host, Ubuntu 16.04 as a guest machine. When I used to update a file in Windows, Rails didn't see the change. The proposed solution helped, thanks. – Zhenya Feb 20 '17 at 08:39
Worked for me on Vagrant with Win10 host and Ubuntu guest. Thanks! – gosukiwi May 25 '19 at 15:42
Is there such a thing as stackoverflow gold? Because you deserve it. I've tried tweaking clock sync settings, changing to nfs file type, etc. Nothing worked. Thank you. – Rick Gladwin Jun 18 '19 at 05:37
This worked for me just now in 2021, but the top commented line out has worked for weeks. Weird how this suddenly became an issue. – DNorthrup Nov 19 '21 at 17:41

score 19 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 12 '16 at 16:45

19

I've solved my problem adding below line to the development.rb file.

config.reload_classes_only_on_change = false

answered Mar 12 '16 at 16:45

mparkitny

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1

This for some reason made my puma server very slow and started breaking some of my devise user session routes. Weird. Will try again and see if it still happens. – Jay Killeen Mar 30 '16 at 02:35
Yeah it gives me an `Read error: #` issue. Not sure if it is caused by the change or a side effect of something else I have done wrong. – Jay Killeen Mar 30 '16 at 02:52
@JayKilleen I was not using Devise in my project, so I didn't encounter this type of errors. After quick research I found possible solution to your problem. You can read more [link](http://stackoverflow.com/a/27990374/3648015) and give it a try. – mparkitny Mar 30 '16 at 23:32
1

I suspect you'll find it's slow because it's probably reloading all classes, not just changed ones, and doing so on every request. – Adam Sanderson Feb 17 '17 at 17:41
4

**If config.cache_classes is true, this option is ignored.** – Kick Buttowski Aug 28 '17 at 22:22
after so long time, this finally fixed this for me on centos and ubuntu. – Jan Wiemers Sep 29 '17 at 18:45
I'm using puma and for me it made also server very-very slow. – JohnSmith Dec 16 '21 at 15:31

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 09 '20 at 09:02

This worked for me with ruby 2.6.5 and Rails 5.2.4.1.:

Add the following line in config/environments/development.rb:

config.file_watcher = ActiveSupport::EventedFileUpdateChecker

along with

config.cache_classes = false

in the same file, and

gem 'listen'

in the :development group in Gemfile.

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 16 '17 at 16:57

pocari's solution worked for me but I had to wait a few seconds before a page reload, otherwise the content was not always updated.

Adding an option to the synced_folder as described in this answer worked fine:

config.vm.synced_folder ".", "/vagrant", type: "nfs", mount_options: ['actimeo=1']

(and the change in development.rb is not necessary)

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Jul 12 '18 at 10:32

I was having the same issue so what I did was make a quick script bump like this. Make sure you are in your app folder first.

!#/bin/bash

rake db:migrate
echo "MIGRATED"
rake routes
echo "routed"
sudo service apache2 restart
echo "web server reloaded"

Now you can just type ./bump and it will run all three commands then you know everything is loaded. I also use this method to repeat this like the command line installs for gems such as devise.

Rails server doesn't see code changes and reload files

5 Answers5

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