osmirbresciani

Problem with Oban Workers

I’m developing process automation using oban, but lately I’m facing a problem with updating the code in worker modules.

Whenever I update the module for the worker and start the application, the worker keeps processing jobs as if the code hasn’t been updated. In the worker module, even if I comment out everything that is in the perform(_job) function, the oban continues processing the code that was there. It’s like there’s some kind of cache.

ie.:

this job successfully run:

  @impl Oban.Worker
  def perform(_job) do
    Users.list_users_from_last_day()
    |> Emails.digest_email()
    |> Mailer.deliver_now()

if I changes to:

  @impl Oban.Worker
  def perform(_job) do
    IO.inspect("Nothing to do")

the previous job before the change continues to run successfully. Or if I change the tags for testing, they don’t change in db.

Another common error I’m experiencing is the “unknown worker”- oban error, when I change the worker set in config.exs.

I’ve already tried:

clear cache files → sudo rm -rf ./_build ./.elixir_ls ./mix.lock ~/.hex/cache.ets
recompile the app from scratch

Running through IEX or running the automated tests, everything works. The problem only occurs in homolog environment

Could anyone give a help on how to debug this problem?

13 comments

/phoenix /oban

8 3437 13

2021-11-28 21:24:15 UTC

Marked As Solved

osmirbresciani

updating:

Running oban tests using iex in dev:

  iex> Oban.Worker.from_string("Oban.Integration.Worker")
  {:ok, Oban.Integration.Worker}

  iex> defmodule NotAWorker, do: []
  ...> Oban.Worker.from_string("NotAWorker")
  {:error, %RuntimeError{message: "module is not a worker: NotAWorker"}}

  iex> Oban.Worker.from_string("RandomWorker")
  {:error, %RuntimeError{message: "unknown worker: RandomWorker"}}

Everything worked as it should. The module is recognized. I also run the app in production with oban workers and it worked!! The error only continues running locally in dev environment: iex -S mix phx.server and mix phx.server where the code doesn’t update and I get the error: unknown worker from oban.

I believe it’s a problem in the compilation of my code because when I start the app, I sometimes get the error: ** (File.Error) could not write to file "/home/desktop/projects/api/_build/dev/lib/api/ebin/my-worker-file.beam": permission denied, but running with release in prod works. Thanks for the help, I’ll search for the cause of this compilation issue.

Post #11

Also Liked

egze

Curious to find out more what you’re building. We are also starting a process automation project soon. Would appreciate if you drop me a message.

Post #10

lud

Can you call the perform/1 function directly from a test to ensure that it works as intended?

Post #5

lud

That’s strange.

As a workaround you can always delete the _build directory (or just _build/dev/lib/myapp).

Also you can call :code.which(MyWorker) to retrieve the beam file for your module so you could check the modification time of this file, or load it in an iex session to check stuff.

Post #9

Aktaeon

Have you been able to figure out what is causing this ? I have the same issue, even with removing _build it still uses the old worker code when running through iex -S mix phx.server . Seems it is cached somewhere ?

Post #13

Aktaeon

Hahaha, never mind, there was an old cache but it was because I am using gitlab review environments which after a git push automatically run. So what was happening that the server for some reason always was the first to be able to get the job and send out the email and not my dev laptop. Leaving this as it might save someone else from wasting two hours trying to figure out what was causing this :-/

Post #14