Redactor intermittently uploading images and files

Question

I'm experiencing an intermittent error using the Redactor WYSIWYG editor when uploading images or files (to clarify, it is the same file that it intermittently works with).

Sometimes the upload process works fine and I see this in the logs:

Started POST "/redactor_rails/pictures?authenticity_token=GErdxBU0dPRINvw8ZSj6VfBpPQ7hMbwtL0B4YWu94Mg%3D" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-11-29 12:30:19 +0100
Processing by RedactorRails::PicturesController#create as HTML
  Parameters: {"file"=>#<ActionDispatch::Http::UploadedFile:0x007f8142445258 @original_filename="fish.jpg", @content_type="image/jpeg", @headers="Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file\"; filename=\"fish.jpg\"\r\nContent-Type: image/jpeg\r\n", @tempfile=#<File:/var/folders/kq/6krgq50x6y3dsx4c4mf19f_40000gn/T/RackMultipart20131129-24880-availq>>, "authenticity_token"=>"GErdxBU0dPRINvw8ZSj6VfBpPQ7hMbwtL0B4YWu94Mg="}
  User Load (0.6ms)  SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = 4 LIMIT 1
   (0.5ms)  BEGIN
  SQL (1.0ms)  INSERT INTO "redactor_assets" ("assetable_id", "assetable_type", "created_at", "data_content_type", "data_file_name", "data_file_size", "height", "type", "updated_at", "user_id", "width") VALUES ($1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11) RETURNING "id"  [["assetable_id", 4], ["assetable_type", "User"], ["created_at", Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:30:21 EST -05:00], ["data_content_type", "image/jpeg"], ["data_file_name", "fish.jpg"], ["data_file_size", 1961898], ["height", 2448], ["type", "RedactorRails::Picture"], ["updated_at", Fri, 29 Nov 2013 06:30:21 EST -05:00], ["user_id", 4], ["width", 3264]]
   (1.9ms)  COMMIT
  Rendered text template (0.0ms)
Completed 200 OK in 5943ms (Views: 1.0ms | ActiveRecord: 4.0ms)

Other times in the upload hangs and I see this in the logs:

Started POST "/redactor_rails/pictures?authenticity_token=GErdxBU0dPRINvw8ZSj6VfBpPQ7hMbwtL0B4YWu94Mg%3D" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-11-29 12:30:43 +0100
Processing by RedactorRails::PicturesController#create as HTML
  Parameters: {"authenticity_token"=>"GErdxBU0dPRINvw8ZSj6VfBpPQ7hMbwtL0B4YWu94Mg="}
  User Load (0.5ms)  SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = 4 LIMIT 1
   (0.2ms)  BEGIN
   (0.2ms)  ROLLBACK
  Rendered text template (0.0ms)
Completed 200 OK in 5ms (Views: 0.4ms | ActiveRecord: 0.9ms)

As you can see it looks like items are missing from the parameters in the failed upload action.

The only error I seem to get is in my browser's console: Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected end of input

Did some further investigation into the actual HTTP request that is being sent and it looks like the client isn't correctly sending the file in the request:

A successful POST request:

"rack.request.form_input"=>
<StringIO:0x007ff68cf47f38>, "rack.request.form_hash"=>{"file"=>{:filename=>"fish.jpg", :type=>"image/jpeg", :name=>"file", :tempfile=>
<File:/var/folders/kq/6krgq50x6y3dsx4c4mf19f_40000gn/T/RackMultipart20131129-26808-1jw83tu>, :head=>"Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"file\"; filename=\"fish.jpg\"\r\nContent-Type: image/jpeg\r\n"}}, "action_dispatch.request_id"=>"db53425e5252ab4045b69e61e076b9d5", "action_dispatch.remote_ip"=>127.0.0.1, "rack.session"=>{"session_id"=>"f5f4102fc79e015efd5abd2ab49156a8", "_csrf_token"=>"Yfvf/glbqZ8RVApod+wFswv84y1sFuiBmtxd9vCG37Q=", "warden.user.user.key"=>["User", [4], "$2a$10$PvP8UOZ27XwZo2fUfQh0H."]}, "rack.session.options"=>{:path=>"/", :domain=>nil, :expire_after=>nil, :secure=>false, :httponly=>true, :defer=>false, :renew=>false, :secret=>"b929602597766546d091f3312aff29d4eb3057308b332bd3dc97be55a810",...

An unsuccessful POST request:

"rack.request.form_input"=>
<StringIO:0x007ff6905e3ec0>, "action_dispatch.request_id"=>"2c37966c55458361c4246178d353fd67", "action_dispatch.remote_ip"=>127.0.0.1, "rack.session"=>{"session_id"=>"f5f4102fc79e015efd5abd2ab49156a8", "_csrf_token"=>"Yfvf/glbqZ8RVApod+wFswv84y1sFuiBmtxd9vCG37Q=", "warden.user.user.key"=>["User", [4], "$2a$10$PvP8UOZ27XwZo2fUfQh0H."]}, "rack.session.options"=>{:path=>"/", :domain=>nil, :expire_after=>nil, :secure=>false, :httponly=>true, :defer=>false, :renew=>false, :secret=>"b929602597766546d091f3312aff29d4eb3057308b332bd3dc97be55a810",...

This would suggest is something to do with the way the HTTP request is being formed on the client side, no?

Answer 1

Finally, after much research I found the culprit. In development I was running my app using the Pow server: http://pow.cx/ This seems to have intermittent problems when dealing with file uploads. There are a number of bugs open on this issue.

I migrated to Unicorn (which is what I use in production) and everything has been fine since.