Uploading images to Meteor app on Heroku gives 503 (service unavailable)

[GoaGit]

When using this package in a Meteor app deployed on Heroku, uploads for images that are (approximately) more than 30kB fail with a client-side 503 response error. The uploading function that I use is similar to the one in the documentation of this package.

Server error message on Heroku:

sock=backend at=error code=H18 desc="Server Request Interrupted" method=POST path="/app/items/uYHL88FBE2oBbjewv/edit" host=platform.XXX request_id=YYY fwd="IP_ZZZ" dyno=web.1 connect=0ms service=39ms status=503 bytes=2140 protocol=https

Heroku H18 error message definition:

The backend socket, belonging to your app’s web process was closed before the backend returned an HTTP response

Uploads that do work for me when using this package:

• Uploading images smaller than approximately 30 kB to Meteor app on Heroku work
• When uploading images from my local machine, the process works for a variet of image sizes (up to 2 MB tested)

So apparently Heroku terminates the connection before the upload was completed. Heroku supports Cloudinary as a plugin and in the docs they give a basic example to use the uploader API:

(Heroku docs for Cloudinary)

var cloudinary = require('cloudinary')
cloudinary.uploader.upload("my_picture.jpg",
function(result) { console.log(result) })

The code above looks similar to the one in this package.

I am looking for some pointers for me to tackle this issue.

[copleykj]

What is your upload flow? Client -> Server -> Cloudinary? Unless absolutely necessary I would choose direct Client -> Cloudinary uploads and avoid Heroku all together.

[GoaGit]

Uploading is done from the client, but the server is involved for verifcation as defined in the setup in the description of the package (with my own credentials of course):

// Server
import { Cloudinary } from 'meteor/socialize:cloudinary';

Cloudinary.config({
    cloud_name: 'cloud_name',
    api_key: '1237419',
    api_secret: 'asdf24adsfjk',
});

// Rules are bound to the connection from which they are are executed. This means you have a userId available as this.userId if there is a logged in user. Throw a new Meteor.Error to stop the method from executing and propagate the error to the client. If rule is not set a standard error will be thrown.
Cloudinary.rules.delete = function (publicId) {
    if (!this.userId && !publicId) throw new Meteor.Error("Not Authorized", "Sorry, you can't do that!");
};

Cloudinary.rules.sign_upload = function () {
    if (!this.userId) throw new Meteor.Error("Not Authorized", "Sorry, you can't do that!")
};

Cloudinary.rules.private_resource = function (publicId) {
    if (!this.userId && !publicId) throw new Meteor.Error("Not Authorized", "Sorry, you can't do that!");
};

Cloudinary.rules.download_url = function (publicId) {
    if (!this.userId && !publicId) throw new Meteor.Error("Not Authorized", "Sorry, you can't do that!");
};

I want to check the user status so the rule Cloudinary.rules.sign_upload is something I want to use. I will see what it does if I leave out this check (and use a preset).

[copleykj]

While there is a request to the server for signing the upload, it shouldn't take more than a few hundred miliseconds unless you are doing something inside the sign_upload rule that takes time, and even then I don't see why it wold generate this error since the upload signing would have to complete before the upload would start.

[GoaGit]

Well I am puzzled. I stripped down the implementation making sure that I the control flow is transparent. It should be a client-side only process but somehow the server gets involved. I am using a component from ant design which has no dependency on Meteor.

I will try to get it working somehow so that I can give an explanation.

[GoaGit]

Found the cause of the issue. Something else in my code was interfering with the upload process. Had nothing to do with this package.

[micthiesen]

@GoaGit I hate to revive an old issue, but do you remember what the actual cause was? I'm seeing these errors on my Django app and I'm stumped.

[GoaGit]

@micthiesen as far as I can remember it had something to do with providing the api key (from a json file). It was not available because I imported it incorrectly. So really nothing with the package itself.

[micthiesen]

Thanks. Our 503s (H18 errors) were caused by us not consuming POST data from the socket for some requests.