Rails Logfiles "not opened for writing" - ruby-on-rails

Question

I am in a process of migrating my application from ruby 1.8.7 to 1.9.3 (and later upgrading Rails). However I geht some problems with logging in 1.9.3.
By using the following code in environment.rb when console or server starts up
logfile = File.open(File.join(RAILS_ROOT,'/log/call_log.log'), 'a')
CALL_LOGGER = AuditLogger.new(logfile)
CALL_LOGGER.info "CALL_LOGGER: Server started."
I get
/usr/local/rvm/scripts/irbrc.rb:32:in `write': not opened for writing (IOError)
AuditLogger is defined as follows:
class AuditLogger < Logger
def format_message(severity, timestamp, progname, msg)
"#{timestamp.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")} #{progname} #{severity} #{msg}\n"
end
end
If I do this manually with irb, this works
1.9.3-p551 :006 > logfile = File.open(File.join('/var/my_app/log/call_log.log'), 'a')
=> #<File:/var/my_app/log/call_log.log>
=> #<AuditLogger:0x00000001ad95e8 #progname=nil, #level=0, #default_formatter=#<Logger::Formatter:0x00000001ad95c0 #datetime_format=nil>, #formatter=nil, #logdev=#<Logger::LogDevice:0x00000001ad9570 #shift_size=nil, #shift_age=nil, #filename=nil, #dev=#<File:/var/my_app/log/call_log.log>, #mutex=#<Logger::LogDevice::LogDeviceMutex:0x00000001ad9548 #mon_owner=nil, #mon_count=0, #mon_mutex=#<Mutex:0x00000001ad94f8>>>>
1.9.3-p551 :011 > CALL_LOGGER.info "CALL_LOGGER: Server started."
=> true
I suspect that the class may have been overriden by another class? So I added some code to determine the class of the file which was currently used
#file.class.ancestors
[File, IO, File::Constants, Enumerable, Object, ActiveSupport::Dependencies::Loadable, PP::ObjectMixin, JSON::Ext::Generator::GeneratorMethods::Object, Kernel, BasicObject]
#file.methods.sort
results in
[:!, :!=, :!~, :<<, :<=>, :==, :===, :=~, :__id__, :__send__, :`, :acts_like?, :advise, :all?, :any?, :as_json, :atime, :autoclose=, :autoclose?, :binmode, :binmode?, :blank?, :breakpoint, :bytes, :chars, :chmod, :chown, :chunk, :class, :class_eval, :clone, :close, :close_on_exec=, :close_on_exec?, :close_read, :close_write, :closed?, :codepoints, :collect, :collect_concat, :copy_instance_variables_from, :count, :ctime, :cycle, :daemonize, :dclone, :debugger, :define_singleton_method, :detect, :display, :drop, :drop_while, :dup, :duplicable?, :each, :each_byte, :each_char, :each_codepoint, :each_cons, :each_entry, :each_line, :each_slice, :each_with_index, :each_with_object, :enable_warnings, :entries, :enum_for, :eof, :eof?, :eql?, :equal?, :exclude?, :extend, :extend_with_included_modules_from, :extended_by, :external_encoding, :fcntl, :fdatasync, :fileno, :find, :find_all, :find_index, :first, :flat_map, :flock, :flush, :freeze, :frozen?, :fsync, :getbyte, :getc, :gets, :grep, :group_by, :hash, :html_safe?, :include?, :index_by, :initialize_clone, :initialize_dup, :inject, :inspect, :instance_eval, :instance_exec, :instance_of?, :instance_values, :instance_variable_defined?, :instance_variable_get, :instance_variable_names, :instance_variable_set, :instance_variables, :internal_encoding, :ioctl, :is_a?, :isatty, :kind_of?, :lineno, :lineno=, :lines, :load_with_new_constant_marking, :lstat, :many?, :map, :max, :max_by, :member?, :metaclass, :metaclass_with_deprecation, :metaclass_without_deprecation, :method, :methods, :min, :min_by, :minmax, :minmax_by, :mtime, :nil?, :none?, :object_id, :one?, :partition, :path, :pid, :pos, :pos=, :presence, :present?, :pretty_inspect, :pretty_print, :pretty_print_cycle, :pretty_print_inspect, :pretty_print_instance_variables, :print, :printf, :private_methods, :protected_methods, :psych_to_yaml, :psych_y, :public_method, :public_methods, :public_send, :putc, :puts, :read, :read_nonblock, :readbyte, :readchar, :readline, :readlines, :readpartial, :reduce, :reject, :remove_subclasses_of, :reopen, :require, :require_association, :require_dependency, :require_library_or_gem, :require_or_load, :respond_to?, :respond_to_missing?, :returning, :reverse_each, :rewind, :seek, :select, :send, :set_encoding, :silence_stderr, :silence_stream, :silence_warnings, :singleton_class, :singleton_methods, :size, :slice_before, :sort, :sort_by, :stat, :subclasses_of, :sum, :suppress, :syck_to_yaml, :sync, :sync=, :sysread, :sysseek, :systemu, :syswrite, :taguri, :taguri=, :taint, :tainted?, :take, :take_while, :tap, :tell, :to_a, :to_enum, :to_hash, :to_i, :to_io, :to_json, :to_param, :to_path, :to_query, :to_s, :to_set, :to_yaml, :to_yaml_properties, :to_yaml_style, :truncate, :trust, :try, :tty?, :ungetbyte, :ungetc, :unloadable, :untaint, :untrust, :untrusted?, :with_options, :write, :write_nonblock, :zip]
According to Ruby 1.9.3 File class definition there should be some methods like 'readable?', 'writable?' in the method's list. But they aren't.
Here is also my list of rubygems which may be helpful
actionmailer (2.3.18)
actionpack (2.3.18)
activerecord (2.3.18)
activeresource (2.3.18)
activesupport (2.3.18)
archive-tar-minitar (0.5.2)
bigdecimal (1.1.0)
bundler (1.7.6)
bundler-unload (1.0.2)
cgi_multipart_eof_fix (2.5.0)
charlock_holmes (0.6.9)
columnize (0.9.0)
daemons (1.0.10)
debugger-ruby_core_source (1.3.8)
eventmachine (1.0.3)
executable-hooks (1.3.2)
fastercsv (1.5.5)
fastthread (1.0.7)
gem-wrappers (1.2.7)
gem_plugin (0.2.3)
geoip-c (0.9.1)
hoe (2.7.0)
hpricot (0.8.6)
httpclient (2.3.4.1)
image_size (1.2.0)
imagesize (0.1.1)
io-console (0.3)
io-tail (0.0.3)
json (1.8.1, 1.5.5)
json_pure (1.8.2, 1.8.1)
juggernaut (2.1.1)
linecache19 (0.5.12)
macaddr (1.6.7)
mechanize (2.0.1)
memcache-client (1.8.5)
mime-types (1.16)
mini_portile (0.6.2, 0.5.2)
minitest (2.5.1)
mongrel (1.2.0.pre2)
mysql (2.9.1)
net-http-digest_auth (1.4)
net-http-persistent (1.9)
nokogiri (1.6.6.2, 1.5.0)
oj (2.5.5)
rack (1.1.6)
rails (2.3.18)
rake (10.1.1, 0.9.2.2)
rbx-require-relative (0.0.9)
rcov (0.9.11)
rdoc (4.1.1, 3.9.5)
redis (3.2.1, 3.0.7)
ruby-debug-base19 (0.11.25)
ruby-debug-base19x (0.11.31)
ruby-debug-ide (0.4.22)
ruby-ole (1.2.11.8)
ruby_core_source (0.1.5)
rubyforge (2.0.4)
rubygems-bundler (1.4.4)
rubyzip (1.1.7)
rvm (1.11.3.9)
soap4r (1.5.8)
spreadsheet (0.9.7)
svg-graph (1.0.5)
systemu (2.6.5, 2.6.4)
thin (1.6.2)
tins (0.13.2)
uuid (2.3.7)
vpim (13.11.11)
webrobots (0.1.1)
xmpp4r (0.5)
Question: Anybody knows how to overcome this issue?

Answer 1

You're using an old version of rails, I'm not sure how things were handled back then, but Logger.new should accept a simple filename as a string.
Forget File.open and let it figure out how to handle the file:
logfile = File.join(Rails.root, '/log/call_log.log')
CALL_LOGGER = AuditLogger.new(logfile)
CALL_LOGGER.info "CALL_LOGGER: Server started."