Getting S3 Credentials from the database at startup in rails - ruby-on-rails

Question

Using a combination of the rails-settings gem and paperclip, I've got my application set up such that one can specify S3 credentials in the database (through an interface in the front end) and can then declare attachments like this;
class Asset < ActiveRecord::Base
has_attached_file :attachment,
:default_url => "content/no-img.jpg",
:s3_credentials => {
:access_key_id => Settings.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
:secret_access_key => Settings.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
}
This works great, but this isn't the only type of attachment in the application (there are other things such as client logos). I'm finding that I need to specify the S3 credentials on every one. I've already tucked some of the defaults away in my app config file;
class Application < Rails::Application
#Paperclip Defaults
config.paperclip_defaults =
{
:storage => :s3,
:bucket => "my-bucket-name"
}
And this all works great, but if I try to pull down the username and password into the app config too, I get the following error;
ActiveRecord::ConnectionNotEstablished (ActiveRecord::ConnectionNotEstablished)
A fairly self explanatory error message, but how do I get around it? If I put the config in the environment files I get the same issue, and if I put them in an initializer like this;
#Paperclip Defaults
MyApp::Application.config.paperclip_defaults =
{
:storage => :s3,
:bucket => "my-bucket-name",
:s3_credentials => {
:access_key_id => RailsSettings::Settings.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
:secret_access_key => RailsSettings::Settings.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
}
}
Then the values don't seem to get picked up and paperclip defaults back to storing the files in my local system directory. Could anyone advise on the best approach to handling this?
EDIT
So after re-reading the documentation I discovered "After Initializers", which gets around the whole active-record not being loaded issue. I have this in my app config;
config.after_initialize do
#Paperclip Defaults
config.paperclip_defaults =
{
:storage => :s3,
:bucket => "my-bucket-name",
:s3_credentials => {
:access_key_id => RailsSettings::Settings.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
:secret_access_key => RailsSettings::Settings.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
}
}
end
And specify this in each model;
has_attached_file :attachment,
:default_url => "content/no-img.jpg",
:path => "#{Rails.env}/:client_name/#{DateTime.now.year}/:name/:basename/:basename-:style.:extension"
yet it still isn't picking up the defaults I specify (it still tries to put them in the public/system folder)

Answer 1

Right, sorted. If anyone has this issue, here's the solution (you basically need to use the "initializers" method to switch active record on before you set the config);
initializer "active_record.initialize_database" do |app|
app.config.paperclip_defaults =
{
:storage => :s3,
:bucket => "my-bucket-name",
:s3_credentials => {
:access_key_id => RailsSettings::Settings.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID,
:secret_access_key => RailsSettings::Settings.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY
}
}
end