# Long-Running Commands Fail **URL:** \ **Category:** Ansible Project\ **Created:** [May 11, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533 "2012-05-11T12:59:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Art\_Zemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@Art\_Zemon](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Art_Zemon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/1 "2012-05-11T12:59:38Z")
I’m stuck on getting a long-running command to work. Running a devel from yesterday morning > commit b90c2356c38685b969c6dc42e4f0cee583fdf431 > Merge: 461ba57 c362a2e > Author: Michael DeHaan [michael.dehaan@gmail.com](mailto:michael.dehaan@gmail.com) > Date: Thu May 10 05:05:50 2012 -0700 I am trying to run the Plesk installer, which takes about 8 or 9 minutes to complete. I ran it with the shell module, so I could redirect the roughly 300 KB of output to a file, and even tried async:1200 with poll:5 and get nowhere. Run synchronously, the playbook gets stuck and never returns an error and never moves to the next task. Running with async:1200 and poll:5, the playbook counts down to 880 seconds remaining and gets stuck. Ideas? – Art Z. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 1:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/2 "2012-05-11T13:17:57Z")
Sounds like your plesk installer went interactive or is otherwise fouled up to me. ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Zemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@Art\_Zemon](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Art_Zemon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:14pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/3 "2012-05-11T14:14:12Z")
Michael, Nope; it does not go interactive. It just runs a long time. I even tested once more just to be sure. Everything is running as expected (and as we have been seeing it work for the last couple of years). This is a 100% test machine. If you like, I can install your ssh public key in root's .ssh/authorized\_keys file and send you the playbook and let you give it a try. Even better, it is a cloud server so I can re-initialize it from an image in about 2 minutes, which makes repeated testing reasonably time-efficient.     -- Art Z. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:21pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/4 "2012-05-11T14:21:01Z")
> > Sounds like your plesk installer went interactive or is otherwise > > fouled up to me. > > Michael, > > Nope; it does not go interactive. It just runs a long time. I even > tested once more just to be sure. Everything is running as expected (and > as we have been seeing it work for the last couple of years). Hmm…. I’m still suspicious. There isn’t a command timeout anymore. Perhaps the lack of output for some time caused a general timeout in sshd? I would be curious if the same problems exist on the master branch (with sudo mode disabled, because master branch non-sudo code is a LOT different). Anyway, async completely demonizes a process, so that should not have any such behavior as a non-async’d process. Lack of returning things there shouldn’t be an issue. > This is a 100% test machine. If you like, I can install your ssh public > key in root’s .ssh/authorized\_keys file and send you the playbook and > let you give it a try. Even better, it is a cloud server so I can > re-initialize it from an image in about 2 minutes, which makes repeated > testing reasonably time-efficient. Yeah, I am not going to do this for various (time/legal) reasons but thanks very much for the offer. I would recommend trying to debug further. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kleint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df705f/32.png) [@John\_Kleint](https://forum.ansible.com/u/John_Kleint)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:57pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/5 "2012-05-11T14:57:05Z")
I've seen this before, and I haven't fully grokked it, but I think the problem is lots of output, not long-running commands. Try: ansible machine -a 'cat /usr/share/dict/words' which hangs, vs. ansible machine -a 'cat /etc/issue' which does not. The hang is in runner.\_exec\_command() reading the stderr "file" from Paramiko. I think the problem is that there isn't really a stderr (since we're using a pty), so lots of stdout fills up the channel's buffer and blocks stderr waiting for you to read stdout. Not sure if that's an issue with Paramiko or not, but I have a one-line fix: just make "stderr" an empty string. [https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/365](https://github.com/ansible/ansible/pull/365) The rest of the code seems prepared to handle this, and the tests pass. -John ---
**Author:** ![Matt\_Coddington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Matt\_Coddington](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Matt_Coddington)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/6 "2012-05-11T15:54:59Z")
FWIW, I've seen this behavior as well (devel from yesterday). I had mistakenly coded "tar xzvf" instead of "tar xzf". The verbose one hung. I just verified that jkleint's patch fixes this for me. matt ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/7 "2012-05-11T16:02:38Z")
Excellent, thx guys, will merge shortly. -- Michael ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Zemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@Art\_Zemon](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Art_Zemon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/8 "2012-05-11T16:11:05Z")
Great news, guys. I will be patient and try again when you get the patch merged and pushed instead of continuing to look for a workaround. Cheers, -- Art Z. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_DeHaan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Michael\_DeHaan](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Michael_DeHaan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/9 "2012-05-11T16:52:55Z")
merged! ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Zemon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@Art\_Zemon](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Art_Zemon)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 6:24pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/long-running-commands-fail/11533/10 "2012-05-11T18:24:26Z")
Tested. Success! Thank you, gentlemen! 🙂     -- Art Z.