Typesafe Config - reference.conf different behavior? - scala

Question

It seems to me that application.conf and reference.conf behaves differently. I do understand that reference.conf is intended as "safe fall back" configuration which works every time and application.conf is specific. However I would expect that configuration loaded from either of those will behave exactly the same in the sense of parsing the configuration.
What I am facing is that if the configuration is in application.conf it works fine and when the same file is renamed to reference.conf it doesn't work.
2015-03-30 11:35:54,603 [DEBUG] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-15] [com.ss.rg.service.ad.AdImporterServiceActor]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/user/AdImporterService - Snapshot saved successfully - removing messages and snapshots up to 0 and timestamp: 1427708154584
2015-03-30 11:35:55,037 [DEBUG] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-4] [spray.can.server.HttpListener]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/user/IO-HTTP/listener-0 - Binding to /0.0.0.0:8080
2015-03-30 11:35:55,054 [DEBUG] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-15] [akka.io.TcpListener]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/system/IO-TCP/selectors/$a/0 - Successfully bound to /0:0:0:0:0:0:0:0:8080
2015-03-30 11:35:55,056 [INFO ] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-4] [spray.can.server.HttpListener]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/user/IO-HTTP/listener-0 - Bound to /0.0.0.0:8080
Compared to :
2015-03-30 11:48:34,053 [INFO ] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-3] [Cluster(akka://BackEndServices)]Cluster(akka://BackEndServices) - Cluster Node [akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551] - Leader is moving node [akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551] to [Up]
2015-03-30 11:48:36,413 [DEBUG] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-15] [spray.can.server.HttpListener]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/user/IO-HTTP/listener-0 - Binding to "0.0.0.0":8080
2015-03-30 11:48:36,446 [DEBUG] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-3] [akka.io.TcpListener]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/system/IO-TCP/selectors/$a/0 - Bind failed for TCP channel on endpoint ["0.0.0.0":8080]: java.net.SocketException: Unresolved address
2015-03-30 11:48:36,446 [WARN ] [BackEndServices-akka.actor.default-dispatcher-15] [spray.can.server.HttpListener]akka.tcp://BackEndServices#127.0.0.1:2551/user/IO-HTTP/listener-0 - Bind to "0.0.0.0":8080 failed
The settle difference are double quotes. And my configuration is specified as follows:
akka {
... standard akka configuration ...
}
webserver.port = 8080
webserver.bindaddress = "0.0.0.0"
Configuration setting is loaded as follows in code:
val webserver_port_key = "webserver.port"
val webserver_bindaddress_key = "webserver.bindaddress"
protected val webserver_bindaddress = ConfigFactory.load().getString(webserver_bindaddress_key)
protected val webserver_port = ConfigFactory.load().getInt(webserver_port_key)
Did I missed something? I double checked that the port 8080 is free when reference.conf fails to bind.
Thanks for hints
UPDATE:
Start with log-config-on-start = on:
- When it is in application.conf
# application.conf: 60-61
"webserver" : {
# application.conf: 61
"bindaddress" : "0.0.0.0",
# application.conf: 60
"port" : 8080
}
- When it is in reference.conf
# reference.conf: 60-61
"webserver" : {
# reference.conf: 61
"bindaddress" : "0.0.0.0",
# reference.conf: 60
"port" : 8080
}
Issue found :
# application.properties
"webserver" : {
# application.properties
"bindaddress" : "\"0.0.0.0\"",
# application.properties
"port" : "8080"
}

Answer 1

It seems that the bindaddress is of a different type because it shows up differently in logs.
In either case enable Akka full config printing on start with this setting in your config:
log-config-on-start = on
Then compare both configurations to see where they mismatch. They should work the same way if the are the same. I suspect that the way you define bindaddress is different, i.e. String vs some other type.