Transaction Retry Continued

This is a community-driven continuation of the transaction_retry gem for retrying database transactions on deadlock and serialization errors. Originally designed to support MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases.

The transaction_retry gem enhances transaction reliability by automatically retrying transactions upon encountering deadlock and serialization errors in the database.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'transaction_retry_continued'

And then execute:

bundle install

Usage

The gem simplifies transaction retry logic by automatically rescuing ActiveRecord::TransactionIsolationConflict and retrying the transaction.

It works out of the box with Ruby on Rails.

If you have a standalone ActiveRecord-based project you'll need to call:

TransactionRetry.apply_activerecord_patch     # after connecting to the database

Database deadlock and serialization errors that are retried

MySQL

Deadlock found when trying to get lock
Lock wait timeout exceeded

PostgreSQL

deadlock detected
could not serialize access

SQLite

The database file is locked
A table in the database is locked
Database lock protocol error

Configuration

You can optionally configure transaction_retry gem in your config/initializers/transaction_retry.rb (or anywhere else):

  TransactionRetry.max_retries = 3
  TransactionRetry.wait_times = [0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32]   # seconds to sleep after retry n

Features

Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite (as long as you are using new drivers mysql2, pg, sqlite3).
Exponential sleep times between retries (0, 1, 2, 4 seconds).
Logs every retry as a warning.
Intentionally does not retry nested transactions.
Configurable number of retries and sleep time between them.
Use it in your Rails application or a standalone ActiveRecord-based project.

Testimonials

This gem was initially developed for and successfully works in production at Kontomierz.pl - the finest Polish personal finance app.

Compatibility

Ruby 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 3.0, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
ActiveRecord 5.2, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0

Running tests

Run tests on the selected database (mysql2 by default):

# passing desired database, active record version and ruby version
docker compose run -e db=sqlite3 -e BUNDLE_GEMFILE=gemfiles/activerecord-7.0/Gemfile.sqlite3 ruby_2_5 bash -c ./docker/test-ruby.sh

# db options: mysql2, postgresql, sqlite3
# active record version options: 5.2, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0
# ruby version options: 2.5, 2.7, 3.0, 3.1

Run tests on all supported databases by ruby version:

docker compose up ruby_2_5
docker compose up ruby_2_7
docker compose up ruby_3_0
docker compose up ruby_3_1

Database configuration is hardcoded in test/db/db.rb; feel free to improve this and submit a pull request.

How intrusive is this gem?

You should be very suspicious about any gem that monkey patches your stock Ruby on Rails framework.

This gem is carefully written to not be more intrusive than it needs to be:

wraps ActiveRecord::Base#transaction class method using alias_method to add new behaviour
introduces two new private class methods in ActiveRecord::Base (with names that should never collide)