uninitialized constant APN::App::RAILS_ENV - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm struggling with this error after I fire the command rake apn:notifications:deliver on the APN on Rails gem that I've installed.
It's barking about the RAILS_ENV variable. I've tried a couple of forks that change RAILS_ENV to Rails.env but I still get the same error. I've posted my issue over on that repo hoping I might get somewhere.
I don't know enough about rails to dig in any further. I'm hoping someone could point me in the right direction so that I can a) better understand what went wrong and b) fix the problem.
I am using bundler and I'm pointing my gem file to the git repo: rake apn:notifications:deliver
air:apnapp azcoov$ rake apn:notifications:deliver --trace
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/version.rb:2: warning: already initialized constant VERSION
** Invoke apn:notifications:deliver (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
** Execute apn:notifications:deliver
rake aborted!
uninitialized constant APN::App::RAILS_ENV
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/app/models/apn/app.rb:11:in `cert'
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/app/models/apn/app.rb:22:in `send_notifications'
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/app/models/apn/app.rb:32:in `send_notifications'
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/app/models/apn/app.rb:31:in `each'
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/app/models/apn/app.rb:31:in `send_notifications'
/Users/azcoov/.bundler/ruby/1.8/apn_on_rails-ca98c7c130f0/lib/apn_on_rails/rails/../tasks/apn.rake:7
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:205:in `call'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:205:in `execute'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:200:in `each'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:200:in `execute'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:158:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `synchronize'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:151:in `invoke_with_call_chain'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/task.rb:144:in `invoke'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:116:in `invoke_task'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `top_level'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `each'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:94:in `top_level'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:88:in `top_level'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:66:in `run'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:133:in `standard_exception_handling'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/lib/rake/application.rb:63:in `run'
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/rake-0.9.2.2/bin/rake:33
/usr/bin/rake:19:in `load'
/usr/bin/rake:19
Tasks: TOP => apn:notifications:deliver

Answer 1

Which version of Rails to you use? I just ran into this issue too. My Rails knowledge is not very deep, but it seems like the problem is deprecation of RAILS_* environment variables. I use Rails 3.1.0 and I do NOT have:
RAILS_ROOT/ENV/blah
in my environment. Instead, I have:
Rails.root/env/blah
When I replace RAILS_ENV with Rails.env in app/models/apn/app.rb the problem goes away.
So, is this gem compatible with Rails 3.1.0??? It seems not. Is there a workaround that will allow its use in a Production environment? Maybe define somewhere:
APN::App::RAILS_ENV = Rails.env
But where?
UPDATE:
I got it working with a workaround described by garyfoster here: https://github.com/PRX/apn_on_rails/issues/53.
To summarize, three things:
1) Add this ghetto hack to your config/environment.rb file:
APN::App::RAILS_ENV = Rails.env
2) Insert your certs in the APN::App table. I wrote a one-time rake task for that:
task :init_apn_certs => [:environment] do # NOTE: One-time task...
print "Creating APN::App with certs..."
app = APN::App.create(:apn_dev_cert => Rails.root.join('config', 'apple_push_notification_development.pem').read,
:apn_prod_cert => Rails.root.join('config', 'apple_push_notification_production.pem').read)
puts (app.valid? ? "done" : "failed")
end
3) Write your own rake task that bypasses the APN::App.send_notifications method, as that barfs with another error (something about '/config/apple_push_notification_development.pem' not existing). My code for it:
task :deliver_notifications => [:environment] do
print "Delivering APNs for app ids..."
apps = APN::App.all
apps.each do |app|
app.send_notifications
print app.id.to_s + "..."
end
puts "done."
end
Or, if you have only one app, you can just do this and be done with it:
task :deliver_notifications => [:environment] do
APN::App.first.send_notifications
end
DISCLAIMER: I'm yet to test this on Staging and Production (will do so by the end of the week), but I see no reason why it shouldn't work.