I've got lots more to write about what's been going on in my life lately, but it's 1AM, so I need to finish updating my Mac Mini server and get to bed.
Update: Hahahaahaha. I am still sitting here at 3AM with my eyes glazed over, smiling like a half-wit at the last sentence I wrote: "it's 1AM, so I need to finish updating my Mac Mini server and get to bed." Famous last words, indeed.
It turns out that one of the Apple updates I downloaded overwrote my specially-compiled php libraries and interpreter. It took me the past two hours to come to that conclusion. :( The stock version of php that Apple gave me this evening was obviously not compiled for fastcgi (which is to be expected). This lack of fastcgi support, in turn, was preventing lighttpd's mod_fastcgi from ever creating a php fastcgi process.
The hard part in debugging this debacle was where to start, as I had just finished uploading tons of code changes and bugfixes. First I suspected a rails routing loop because I was seeing my .php requests being logged over and over again. Eventually I had enough common sense to enable fastcgi.debug, which then showed me that the php fastcgi process was failing to launch correctly. This explained why I was seeing the requests being logged repeatedly: lighttpd was trying and re-trying the request furiously while the php process continued to bonk. At that point, my sleep-deprived brain grudgingly made the connection between that darned Apple update I ran just before going to bed. At least, I thought I was running the update "just before" going to bed.
Lesson learned: do not run your operating system's automatic update process after a major application upgrade at 1AM in the morning.
August 28th, 2005 at 09:42 AM And you were telling ME to go to bed?
August 29th, 2005 at 08:38 AM oh so pretty! and -- my first experience of the new site included a random photo of ME! :D of course.. you had that on your old page too. alan
September 13th, 2005 at 01:42 PM doug!! saw your note on my blog.... i'm in brattleboro... it's insanely beautiful out here!! if you get a chance, check out: www.sit.edu. you might be interested.... blessings, amy