Error
"A server is already running. Check .../tmp/pids/server.pid"
This error means that the server is already running in the port you are trying to start the rails server on; normally 3000.
Reasons for Error
This error can occur in two cases:
You are running the Rails server on port 3000 in another tab of the terminal
-
You suspended the server abruptly
This normally happens when you stop the server with
ctrl+z
instead ofctrl+c
to exit the Rails server.ctrl+z
suspends the process but doesn't close the server running on port 3000 meaning the server is still running on background.This can also happen when you close the terminal that the rails server was running on.
Solution
Rails server is running on port 3000 in another tab of the terminal
You can just close the server running on another tab on port 3000 to resolve this issue.
Server suspended abruptly
Solution for this case is to kill the process running in the background on port 3000
-
Find the process id for the rails server port
If the port you are running the rails server is different than 3000, you should replace 3000 with the port number as required.
lsof -wni tcp:3000
You should be able to see the output like this:
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME ruby 16660 cool 14u IPv4 0x89786e1f70a36a3 0t0 TCP 127.0.0.1:hbci (LISTEN) ruby 16660 cool 15u IPv6 0x89786e1d82f7aeb 0t0 TCP [::1]:hbci (LISTEN)
Copy value in PID column, here 16660
-
Kill the process
kill -9 16660
You should see the following output:
[1] + 10975 killed rails s
Try running the server again
Conclusion
Rails server should be up and running without any errors now.
Thank you for reading. Happy Coding!
References
Image Credits
- Cover Image by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash
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