Why can I not do a local Net::HTTP get request?

Question

So I have a controller action that renders json.. I can visit the url in the browser and see the json data, verifying that the route is working properly...

Yet, if I do:

uri = URI("#{request.protocol}#{request.host_with_port}/my_controller/action")
Net::HTTP.get(uri)

I get "Timeout::Error: Timeout::Error"

... ?

Answer 1

You're using a single-threaded HTTP server, ie Webrick. This means that it will only be able to serve one request at a time. You're attempting to make a request to the webserver from within the webserver itself. It won't be able to complete this action because of now hopefully obvious reasons.

Use a different web server, such as Thin, that would allow for this, or choose a different way to do this.