h9e

h9e

Can't start application after upgrading elixir/erlang and oban packages

Hello, we recently upgraded a few services:

  • elixir 1.15.8-otp-25 to 1.18.4-otp-27 (live deployed)
  • oban ~> 2.18.1 to ~> 2.19
  • oban_pro ~> 1.4.11 to ~> 1.5.0
  • oban_web ~> 2.10.2 to ~> 2.11

In my current task, I’m trying to upgrade 3 oban packages and it works fine locally. However, when starting application in a remote (testing) environment, it failed to start.

I have reverted oban versions and the app starts normally in test env. Remove cache in test env doesn’t help. We have postgresql 14.17

Any help on what’s happening? Please let me know if you need anything @sorentwo @sorenone . Thanks!

This error is logged in the remote server.

{"time":"2025-09-16T11:24:52.614Z","severity":"error",
"message":"GenServer {Oban.Registry, {Oban, {:producer, \"migration\"}}} terminating\n** (ArgumentError) errors were found at the given arguments:
 * 1st argument: the table identifier does not refer to an existing ETS table 
 (stdlib 7.0.2) :ets.select(:pro_ack_tab_0, [{{{:ack, \"Oban\", \"migration\", :_}, :_, :_, :_}, [], [:\"$_\"]}])
 (oban_pro 1.5.5) lib/oban/pro/engines/smart.ex:1012: Oban.Pro.Engines.Smart.get_acks/1
 (oban_pro 1.5.5) lib/oban/pro/engines/smart.ex:552: Oban.Pro.Engines.Smart.fetch_jobs/3
 (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/engine.ex:252: anonymous fn/4 in Oban.Engine.fetch_jobs/3
 (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/engine.ex:387: anonymous fn/3 in Oban.Engine.with_span/4
 (telemetry 1.3.0) /__w/balanced/balanced/deps/telemetry/src/telemetry.erl:324: :telemetry.span/3
 (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/queue/producer.ex:253: Oban.Queue.Producer.start_jobs/1
 (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/queue/producer.ex:244: anonymous fn/2 in Oban.Queue.Producer.dispatch/1 Last message: :dispatch
 State: %Oban.Queue.Producer{conf: %Oban.Config{dispatch_cooldown: 250, engine: Oban.Pro.Engines.Smart, get_dynamic_repo: nil, insert_trigger: true, log: false, name: Oban, node: \"pr-4147-84588b87fc-cbwqg\", notifier: {Oban.Notifiers.Postgres, []}, peer: {Oban.Peers.Database, []}, plugins: [{Oban.Pro.Plugins.DynamicPruner, [state_overrides: [cancelled: {:max_age, {1, :hour}}, completed: {:max_age, {1, :month}}, discarded: {:max_age, {3, :month}}]]}, {Oban.Pro.Plugins.DynamicLifeline, []}], prefix: \"public\", queues: [...truncated...], repo: Balanced.Repo, shutdown_grace_period: 15000, stage_interval: 1000, testing: :disabled}, foreman: {:via, Registry, {Oban.Registry, {Oban, {:foreman, \"migration\"}}}}, meta: %Oban.Pro.Producer{__meta__: #Ecto.Schema.Metadata<:loaded, \"public\", \"oban_producers\">, uuid: \"01995245-2893-7c51-af4c-60a4400ca0a4\", name: \"Oban\", node: \"pr-4147-84588b87fc-cbwqg\", queue: \"migration\", started_at: ~U[2025-09-16 11:24:48.147420Z], updated_at: ~U[2025-09-16 11:24:48.147424Z], ack_async: true, ack_tab: :pro_ack_tab_0, refresh_interval: 30000, xact_delay: 1000, xact_retry: 5, xact_timeout: 30000, meta: %Oban.Pro.Producer.Meta{local_limit: 1, paused: false, shutdown_started_at: nil, global_limit: nil, rate_limit: nil}}, name: {:via, Registry, {Oban.Registry, {Oban, {:producer, \"migration\"}}}}, dispatch_timer: #Reference<0.534427290.921698305.255298>, refresh_timer: #Reference<0.534427290.921698305.253530>, dispatch_cooldown: 250, running: %{}}",
 "metadata":{"error":{"initial_call":null,"reason":"** (ArgumentError) errors were found at the given arguments:\n\n  * 1st argument: the table identifier does not refer to an existing ETS table\n\n    (stdlib 7.0.2) :ets.select(:pro_ack_tab_0, [{{{:ack, \"Oban\", \"migration\", :_}, :_, :_, :_}, [], [:\"$_\"]}])\n    (oban_pro 1.5.5) lib/oban/pro/engines/smart.ex:1012: Oban.Pro.Engines.Smart.get_acks/1\n    (oban_pro 1.5.5) lib/oban/pro/engines/smart.ex:552: Oban.Pro.Engines.Smart.fetch_jobs/3\n    (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/engine.ex:252: anonymous fn/4 in Oban.Engine.fetch_jobs/3\n    (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/engine.ex:387: anonymous fn/3 in Oban.Engine.with_span/4\n    (telemetry 1.3.0) /__w/balanced/balanced/deps/telemetry/src/telemetry.erl:324: :telemetry.span/3\n    (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/queue/producer.ex:253: Oban.Queue.Producer.start_jobs/1\n    (oban 2.19.4) lib/oban/queue/producer.ex:244: anonymous fn/2 in Oban.Queue.Producer.dispatch/1\n"},"error_logger":{"tag":"error","report_cb":"&:gen_server.format_log/1"},"function":"error_info/7","line":2785,"module":"gen_server","time":1758021892614425,"file":"gen_server.erl","domain":"[:otp]","erl_level":"error"}}

▸  Evaluation failed with: errors were found at the given arguments:
▸    * 1st argument: the table identifier does not refer to an existing ETS table

Our config looks like

config :myapp, Oban,
  repo: Myapp.Repo,
  engine: Oban.Pro.Engines.Smart,
  plugins: [
    Oban.Pro.Plugins.DynamicLifeline,
    {
      Oban.Pro.Plugins.DynamicPruner,
      state_overrides: [
        cancelled: {:max_age, {1, :hour}},
        completed: {:max_age, {1, :month}},
        discarded: {:max_age, {3, :month}}
      ]
    }
  ],
  queues: [
    default: 1,
    other_jobs: 1,
    ... truncated
  ],
  dispatch_cooldown: 250

And all children are started in application file

  def start(_type, _args) do
    maybe_install_ecto_dev_logger()

    Appsignal.Phoenix.LiveView.attach()

    children =
      maybe_cluster_supervisor() ++
        cache_supervisors() ++
        [
          MyAppWeb.Endpoint,
          MyApp.PromEx,
          MyApp.Repo,
          MyApp.Vault,
          MyAppWeb.Telemetry,
          {Phoenix.PubSub, [name: MyApp.PubSub]},
          {Task.Supervisor, name: MyApp.TaskSupervisor},
          {Oban, oban_config()}
        ]

    Oban.Telemetry.attach_default_logger()
    Oban.Web.Telemetry.attach_default_logger()

    opts = [strategy: :one_for_one, name: MyApp.Supervisor]
    Supervisor.start_link(children, opts)
  end

  defp oban_config do
    config = Application.fetch_env!(:myapp, Oban)

    if config[:plugins] do
      Keyword.update!(config, :plugins, fn plugins ->
        Keyword.put(plugins, Oban.Pro.Plugins.DynamicCron, crontab: periodical_jobs(), timezone: "Etc/UTC")
      end)
    else
      config
    end
  end

First 3 of 3 Posts Switch mode

sorentwo

sorentwo

Oban Core Team

How are you upgrading the system? Is there any chance you have old code running in that environment? The stack trace you shared indicates that an ETS table is missing, but that’s started by the oban_pro application itself and they can’t just disappear without the whole application having an issue.

Also, since you rolled back, did you follow the upgrade guide for Pro v1.5, namely, did you run the migrations?

h9e

h9e

Hey @sorentwo

We did follow closely to the upgrade guide for Pro v1.5. But there was two issues during running migration locally and we found a workaround for that. I’m not sure that’s related to my original question, but i will post them below.

First issue, one of our migration (priv/repo/migrations/20250415122526_remove_fb_cron_jobs.exs) back in April 2025 has this error

** (Postgrex.Error) ERROR 42P01 (undefined_table) relation "oban_crons" does not exist

the migration

def up do
    execute("""
    DELETE FROM oban_crons
    WHERE name IN (
      'SyncNewTransactionsWorker',
      'SyncPendingTransactionsWorker'
    )
    """)
  end

Our workaround is to comment the execute/1 part out.

Second issue locally

15:17:27.849 [info] create index if not exists public.oban_jobs_unique_index
  ** (Postgrex.Error) ERROR 23505 (unique_violation) could not create unique index "oban_jobs_unique_index"
    table: oban_jobs
    constraint: oban_jobs_unique_index
  Key (uniq_key)=(aoPUIkpxeBl1gCo1UKPzmYERP3oNKxp+BnbF5bObe9M) is duplicated.
    (ecto_sql 3.12.1) lib/ecto/adapters/sql.ex:1096: Ecto.Adapters.SQL.raise_sql_call_error/1

after investigation, we tried to prune manually completed jobs that caused this constraint violation, with another migration (below) that will run before the upgrade_oban_pro migration. Note: we found our unique job config was wrong and also fix that to prevent future unique index violation.

  def change do
    query = """
    DELETE from oban_jobs
    WHERE worker = 'SyncNewTransactionsWorker'
    AND args->>'init' != 'true'
    AND meta->>'uniq' = 'true'
    AND state = 'completed'
    ;
    """

    execute(query)
  end

After 2 issues resolved locally, upgrade_oban_pro run successfully with mix ecto.migrate. Then we had the current issue in the original post with remote server.

Is there any chance you have old code running in that environment?

We can start each test environment per PR, server works totally fine for all PRs except this one with oban upgrades. As mentioned, we removed also caching for CI/CD, but it didn’t help.

At this point, we couldn’t find anyone asking similar issue, maybe there’s something with our data specific? Or issue related to the wrong unique setup? But we still cannot think of how ETS table is missing at this point :thinking:

sorentwo

sorentwo

Oban Core Team

Based on the issues you shared, no, it looks like those issues wouldn’t be related to the problem you’re seeing. I wanted to confirm that the proper tables were there and there wasn’t a chance that the oban_pro application shut down.

Sorry, this is the first we’ve heard of this issue. It definitely wouldn’t have anything to do with your unique setup, or anything related to the actual jobs.

Will you try confirming a few things? First, that the Pro application is running with Application.start(:oban_pro). If it’s running, you’ll get an :already_started error.

Then, if it’s there, double check whether the tables are running:

for name ← :ets.all(), inspect(name) =~ “pro_ack”, do: name
— All posts loaded —

Where Next?

Trending in Questions Top

jonnycharles
I’m in search of an Elixir library that offers PDF generation capabilities similar to Ruby’s Prawn. While there have been discussions abo...
New
spammy
I’m looking to build a personal workflow to quickly deploy web applications written in elixir/phoenix, for local consumption (ie not on t...
New
silverdr
Using Phoenix.LiveView.TagEngine as an EEx.Engine is deprecated! To compile HEEx, use Phoenix.LiveView.TagEngine.compile/2 instead. Sta...
New
saveman71
Hello ! We want new/edit form pages to POST/PUT to their own URL rather than the resources REST defaults (post /things, put /things/:id)...
New
dli
Before I dive in myself, did anyone successfully sprinkle Hologram into their existing LiveView app? Looking for hints regarding: Addi...
New
bottlenecked
Hi all, I wanted to ask how the community is dealing with post-release steps. Today we have Ecto migrations, which make sure that the db...
New
michallepicki
I am using Oban and occasionally, shortly after a deployment, a handful of jobs can fail because of dependency on other parts of the syst...
New

Other Trending Topics Top

JesseHerrick
Hey, I’m Jesse and I’m the main contributor behind Dexter, a full-featured, lightning-fast Elixir LSP optimized for large codebases. It s...
New
jimsynz
Beam Bots (or just BB for short) is a framework for building fault-tolerant robotics applications in Elixir using familiar OTP patterns. ...
New
Damirados
Hello everyone. After busy few months I am happy to announce v0.1.0 of Emerge &amp; Solve. They are GUI (Emerge) and State management (S...
New
ausimian
Emily is an Elixir library that runs Nx computations on Apple’s MLX. Install it as the default Nx backend and Nx, defn, Axon, Nx.Serving,...
New
type1fool
I just stumbled on a newly redesigned elixir-lang.org. :tada: It looks like @Software_Mansion did the work, and I think it is generally a...
New
akoutmos
@hugobarauna and I (Alex Koutmos) have been hard at work on writing a book on Nerves that takes you from simply blinking LEDs to building...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement