Traceback when building an exrm release of a Phoenix app

Question

After SCP-ing my Phoenix app dir from my Macbook to my Fedora VM, I try to build a production exrm release but an exception is raised:

==> Building release with MIX_ENV=prod.
==> Generating relx configuration...
==> Generating sys.config...
==> Generating boot script...
==> Performing protocol consolidation...
==> Conform: Loading schema...
==> Conform: No schema found, conform will not be packaged in this release!
==> Generating release...
===> Missing beam file megaco_flex_scanner <<"/usr/lib64/erlang/lib/megaco-3.17.3/ebin/megaco_flex_scanner.beam">>
===> Missing beam file 'Elixir.Access' <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/elixir-1.1.1/ebin/Elixir.Access.beam">>
===> Missing beam file error_handler <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/kernel-4.1/ebin/error_handler.beam">>
===> Missing beam file erl_anno <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/stdlib-2.6/ebin/erl_anno.beam">>
===> Missing beam file cow_cookie <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/cowlib-1.0.2/ebin/cow_cookie.beam">>
===> Missing beam file cowboy_middleware <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/cowboy-1.0.4/ebin/cowboy_middleware.beam">>
===> Missing beam file 'Elixir.Phoenix.HTML' <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/phoenix_html-2.3.0/ebin/Elixir.Phoenix.HTML.beam">>
===> Missing beam file 'Elixir.Poison' <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/poison-1.5.0/ebin/Elixir.Poison.beam">>
===> Missing beam file 'Elixir.Plug' <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/plug-1.0.3/ebin/Elixir.Plug.beam">>
===> Missing beam file 'Elixir.Mix.Phoenix' <<"/home/me/lartbot/rel/lartbot/lib/phoenix-1.0.4/ebin/Elixir.Mix.Phoenix.beam">>

02:59:36.683 [error] Error in process <0.10938.0> with exit value: {{badmatch,{error,enoent}},[{rlx_prv_assembler,rewrite_app_file,2,[{file,"src/rlx_prv_assembler.erl"},{line,215}]},{lists,map,2,[{file,"lists.erl"},{line,1237}]},{ec_plists,'-local_runmany/3-fun-0-',3,[{file,"src/ec_plists.erl"},... 


** (exit) an exception was raised:
    ** (MatchError) no match of right hand side value: {:error, :enoent}
        src/rlx_prv_assembler.erl:215: :rlx_prv_assembler.rewrite_app_file/2
        (stdlib) lists.erl:1237: :lists.map/2
        src/ec_plists.erl:753: anonymous fn/3 in :ec_plists.local_runmany/3
    src/ec_plists.erl:900: :ec_plists.handle_error/3
    src/ec_plists.erl:764: :ec_plists.local_runmany/3
    src/rlx_prv_assembler.erl:152: :rlx_prv_assembler.copy_app_directories_to_output/3
    src/rlx_prv_assembler.erl:58: :rlx_prv_assembler.do/1
    src/relx.erl:286: :relx.run_provider/2
    (stdlib) lists.erl:1261: :lists.foldl/3
    src/relx.erl:266: :relx.run_providers/1
    lib/exrm/utils.ex:94: ReleaseManager.Utils.relx/5

I'm completely new to Erlang, Elixir, and Phoenix so I haven't really got the faintest idea how to troubleshoot this one.

Answer 1

There is some talk at https://github.com/bitwalker/exrm/issues/107 that this is fixed by using a different install of Erlang. That didn't look like a good approach for me. So on the advice of others I tried running with

mix release --verbosity=verbose

That got me more information, including the following error:

===> Provider (resolve_release) failed with: {error,
                                                {rlx_prv_release,
                                                 {failed_solve,
                                                  {unreachable_package,
                                                   phoenix_live_reload}}}}

So in my case phoenix_live_reload was causing the problem. I removed phoenix_live_reload from the application and deps functions of my mix.exs (I didn't want to include that in production anyway) and then it successfully built the release for me.