Solr (Sunspot) runs, but won't start - ruby-on-rails

Question

When I run RAILS_ENV=production rake sunspot:solr:run, Solr starts as expected and the log looks something like this:
0 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.u.log Logging initialized #613ms
355 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.s.Server jetty-9.2.11.v20150529
380 WARN (main) [ ] o.e.j.s.h.RequestLogHandler !RequestLog
383 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.d.p.ScanningAppProvider Deployment monitor [file:/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr- 2.2.3/solr/server/contexts/] at interval 0
1392 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.w.StandardDescriptorProcessor NO JSP Support for /solr, did not find org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet
1437 WARN (main) [ ] o.e.j.s.SecurityHandler ServletContext#o.e.j.w.WebAppContext#1f3ff9d4{/solr,file:/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr-webapp/webapp/,STARTING}{/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr-webapp/webapp} has uncovered http methods for path: /
1456 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.s.SolrDispatchFilter SolrDispatchFilter.init(): WebAppClassLoader=879601585#346da7b1
1487 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.SolrResourceLoader JNDI not configured for solr (NoInitialContextEx)
1488 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.SolrResourceLoader using system property solr.solr.home: /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr
1491 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.SolrResourceLoader new SolrResourceLoader for directory: '/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr/'
1738 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.SolrXmlConfig Loading container configuration from /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr/solr.xml
1848 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoresLocator Config-defined core root directory: /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr
1882 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoreContainer New CoreContainer 394200281
1882 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoreContainer Loading cores into CoreContainer [instanceDir=/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr/]
1883 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoreContainer loading shared library: /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr/lib
1883 WARN (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.SolrResourceLoader Can't find (or read) directory to add to classloader: lib (resolved as: /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr/lib).
1905 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.h.c.HttpShardHandlerFactory created with socketTimeout : 600000,connTimeout : 60000,maxConnectionsPerHost : 20,maxConnections : 10000,corePoolSize : 0,maximumPoolSize : 2147483647,maxThreadIdleTime : 5,sizeOfQueue : -1,fairnessPolicy : false,useRetries : false,
2333 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.u.UpdateShardHandler Creating UpdateShardHandler HTTP client with params: socketTimeout=600000&connTimeout=60000&retry=true
2338 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.l.LogWatcher SLF4J impl is org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory
2339 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.l.LogWatcher Registering Log Listener [Log4j (org.slf4j.impl.Log4jLoggerFactory)]
2341 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoreContainer Security conf doesn't exist. Skipping setup for authorization module.
2341 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoreContainer No authentication plugin used.
2379 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoresLocator Looking for core definitions underneath /usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr
2385 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.c.CoresLocator Found 0 core definitions
2389 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.s.SolrDispatchFilter user.dir=/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server
2390 INFO (main) [ ] o.a.s.s.SolrDispatchFilter SolrDispatchFilter.init() done
2435 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.s.h.ContextHandler Started o.e.j.w.WebAppContext#1f3ff9d4{/solr,file:/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr-webapp/webapp/,AVAILABLE}{/usr/local/rvm/gems/ruby-2.2.1/gems/sunspot_solr-2.2.3/solr/server/solr-webapp/webapp}
2458 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.s.ServerConnector Started ServerConnector#649ad901{HTTP/1.1}{0.0.0.0:8080}
2458 INFO (main) [ ] o.e.j.s.Server Started #3074ms
6677 INFO (qtp207710485-20) [ ] o.a.s.s.SolrDispatchFilter [admin] webapp=null path=/admin/cores params={indexInfo=false&_=1453515549920&wt=json} status=0 QTime=58
6796 INFO (qtp207710485-19) [ ] o.a.s.s.SolrDispatchFilter [admin] webapp=null path=/admin/info/system params={_=1453515550069&wt=json} status=0 QTime=23
I can also access localhost:8080/solr.
However, when I run RAILS_ENV=production rake sunspot:solr:start --trace, I get a normal trace:
** Invoke sunspot:solr:start (first_time)
** Invoke environment (first_time)
** Execute environment
** Execute sunspot:solr:start
Removing stale PID file at /home/rails/webapp/solr/pids/production/sunspot-solr-production.pid
Successfully started Solr ...
Yet I can't access localhost:8080 (it gives me an ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED), and when I try to do anything else involving Solr, I get an Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused error.
For example, when I run RAILS_ENV=production rake sunspot:solr:reindex after starting Solr, I get:
Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused - {:data=>"<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?><delete><query>type:Piece</query></delete>", :headers=>{"Content-Type"=>"text/xml"}, :method=>:post, :params=>{:wt=>:ruby}, :query=>"wt=ruby", :path=>"update", :uri=>#<URI::HTTP http://localhost:8080/solr/update?wt=ruby>, :open_timeout=>nil, :read_timeout=>nil, :retry_503=>nil, :retry_after_limit=>nil}
....
Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused - connect(2) for "localhost" port 8080
My sunspot.yml file looks like this, after this:
production:
solr:
hostname: localhost
port: 8080 #tomcat defaults to port 8080
path: /solr
log_level: WARNING
solr_home: solr
The Solr server was working fine before. The connection errors started when I tried to seed the production db and received an EOFError: end of file reached. I can post the full trace for that error if needed.
Please help!

Answer 1

I had a similar situation happen. Sunspot would say that Solr had started successfully, but it never actually did start. Turns out I was using Java 1.6 and installing JDK 8 fixed it for me.