ErrorMessages

Explanation and solution of error messages you may experience while building or running CouchDB.

Missing icu-config

Problem

*** The icu-config script could not be found. Make sure it is
*** in your path, and that taglib is properly installed.
*** Or see http://ibm.com/software/globalization/icu/

Solution

Install ICU and use locate to find the icu-config command:

locate icu-config

Take the directory from the output of this command and add it to your PATH:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"

Incorrect LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Problem

$ couchdb      
Apache CouchDB 0.8.0-incubating (LogLevel=info)
Apache CouchDB is starting.

{"init terminating in do_boot",{error,{open_error,-10}}​}

Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
init terminating in do_boot ()

Solution

You must correctly set your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable so that it picks up your installed libraries. On Mac OS X, the equivalent variable is DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Example running as normal user:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/local/js/lib couchdb

Example running as couchdb user:

echo LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/local/js/lib couchdb | sudo -u couchdb sh

Binary Architecture Mismatch

On Mac OS X, libraries and executables can be fat binaries that support multiple processor architectures (PPC and x86, 32 and 64 bit). But that also means you will run into problems when trying to load a library into an application if that library doesn't support the architecture used by the application process.

Problem

$ couchdb      
Apache CouchDB 0.8.0-incubating (LogLevel=info)
Apache CouchDB is starting.

{"init terminating in do_boot",{error,{open_error,-12}}​}

Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
init terminating in do_boot ()

Solution

You've probably built Erlang with the 64 bit option enabled. The problem is that ICU, which CouchDB attempts to load at startup time, has not been compiled with 64 bit support, so it can't be loaded into the 64bit Erlang process.

For now you'll have to recompile Erlang, and resist the temptation to build a 64 bit binary (just omit the --enable-darwin-64bit option). The --enable-darwin-universal option works okay, but note that currently there's no universal build of ICU available.

Unavailable Port

Problem

$ couchdb      
Apache CouchDB 0.8.0-incubating (LogLevel=info)
Apache CouchDB is starting.

...
[error] [<0.46.0>] {error_report,<0.21.0>,
...
               {couch_httpd,start_link,
                   ["127.0.0.1","5984","/tmp/couchdb-a/share/couchdb/www"]}},
           {restart_type,permanent},
           {shutdown,1000},
           {child_type,supervisor}]}]}}
...

Solution

Edit your /etc/couchdb/couch.ini file and change the Port setting to an available port.

Missing OpenSSL

Problem

$ bin/couchdb
Apache CouchDB 0.8.0-incubating (LogLevel=info)
Apache CouchDB is starting.                                                                       

{"init terminating in do_boot",{undef,[{crypto,start,[]},{erl_eval,do_apply,5},{init,start_it,1},{init,start_em,1}]}}  

Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
init terminating in do_boot ()

Solution

You need to install the OpenSSL libraries and recompile Erlang with SSL enabled.

Incorrect Permissions

Problem

$ bin/couchdb
Apache CouchDB 0.9.0a691361-incubating (LogLevel=info) is starting.
{"init terminating in do_boot",{{badmatch,{error,shutdown}},[{couch_server_sup,start_server,1},{erl_eval,do_apply,5},{erl_eval,exprs,5},{init,start_it,1},{init,start_em,1}]}}

Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
init terminating in do_boot ()

Solution

You need to make sure that the user running couchdb has permissions to write to /usr/local/var/lib/couchdb and /usr/local/var/log/couchdb.