Foreman start hangs - node.js

Question

I'm trying to make an express (currently working) application to work with foreman start.
This is my Procfile:
web: node ./bin/www
This is my www file:
#!/usr/bin/env node
var debug = require('debug')('quiz');
var app = require('../app');
app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);
var server = app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
debug('Express server listening on port ' + server.address().port);
});
And this is my package.json:
{
"name": "quiz",
"version": "0.0.0",
"private": true,
"scripts": {
"start": "node ./bin/www"
},
"engines": {
"node": "0.10.x",
"npm": "1.4.x"
},
"devDependencies": {
"sqlite3": "^3.0.8"
},
"dependencies": {
"body-parser": "~1.8.1",
"cookie-parser": "~1.3.3",
"debug": "~2.0.0",
"ejs": "~0.8.5",
"express": "~4.9.0",
"express-partials": "^0.3.0",
"morgan": "~1.3.0",
"pg": "^4.1.1",
"pg-hstore": "^2.3.2",
"sequelize": "^1.7.0",
"serve-favicon": "~2.1.3"
}
}
When I run foreman start in the log everything looks alright:
23:17:21 web.1 | started with pid 1632
When I test it in my browser the request are shown in the log but nothing reach the browser.
This is de log when I try to browse to http://localhost:5000/:
23:20:56 web.1 | ←[0mGET / ←[32m200 ←[0m25.741 ms - 1404←[0m
23:20:56 web.1 | ←[0mGET /stylesheets/style.css ←[36m304 ←[0m5.098 ms - -←[0m
23:20:56 web.1 | ←[0mGET /stylesheets/wide.css ←[36m304 ←[0m4.419 ms - -←[0m
The request seems to be resolved but the browser keeps waiting for response indefinitely. Finally the browser shows ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE.
I try to make some other arbitrary request with the same result:
23:23:08 web.1 | ←[0mGET /author ←[32m- ←[0m- ms - -←[0m
23:23:08 web.1 | ←[0mGET /stylesheets/smartphone.css ←[32m- ←[0m- ms - -←[0m
23:25:59 web.1 | ←[0mGET /author ←[32m- ←[0m- ms - -←[0m
23:28:00 web.1 | ←[0mGET /author ←[32m- ←[0m- ms - -←[0m
23:30:00 web.1 | ←[0mGET /author ←[32m- ←[0m- ms - -←[0m
Any idea of how could I debug this in order to figure what's happening?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Heroku no longer supports foreman so the best approach would be to try using their recommended alternative to foreman instead: the heroku command "local".
The implementation is trivial:
Download and install the latest version of heroku toolbelt (which no longer includes foreman).
Instead of using foreman start use heroku local.
See heroku's web site for full details of heroku local.
Although you don't mention it, is it possible that the reason you are getting those ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE messages is because foreman had died (rather than "hung") while handling the request? I had the same problem with some stylesheets after foreman had logged the message "sending SIGKILL to all processes" to the console, and terminated. Regardless, my problems vanished when I used heroku local instead of foreman start.
And even if heroku local also fails, that should become the issue to resolve rather than your current problem with foreman.