Sleeping shinyapps instance won't wake up when user accesses the link

Posit Professional & Hosted Products shinyapps.io
1

Hello, I am currently using the 13 USD/month option for shinyapps.io. I have a tool that only ever displays an error 404 page when users visit the site. This occurs when the server instance goes to sleep, and the tool functions normally if I manually start up the instance, but as soon as the instance goes to sleep, users can only ever see the 404 page. From my understanding, instances should wake up when a user visits the URL, but this doesn't happen in my case.

Is the automatic wakeup a function of a higher paid tier of shinyapps.io? I'm not sure if I am missing something. This problem seems similar to this post, https://forum.posit.co/t/sleeping-shiny-app-does-not-wake-up-and-cannot-restart/151665 but I am not having any error messages when I try to restart the server instance.

I have also checked the server logs, and no errors are displayed. The only message I see is the following whenever the instance goes to sleep:

Container event from container-8855527: stop

1 Like
2

I also have the same problem. Did you fix it?

3

I also have the same problem. Specifically, the instance goes to sleep and it does not wake up when a user is trying to use the application. Additionally, I cannot wake up the app manually from the dashboard menu. Instead, I can make it work only if I redeploy it.

Does anyone else this problem? I am constantly redeploying my apps only for them to work!

4

Hello.
I have a similar problem especially with one of my shiny apps (TTN_PSIVIS ). It fails to run or wake up properly and it is only fixed if I "restart application" in the "Applications / running" page ! After it is fixed the same issue arises shortly after the application sleeps, making the application not accessible again. I do not have the same issue with the other similar application !

5

Hello, I am having the same problem, getting a 404 if the app goes to sleep. I can get it to work by restarting in the shinyapps.io dashboard though, I don't need to redeploy it. The logs do not show anything unusual, and when a user tries to refresh the browser or "reload" a sleeping app the app stays sleeping. So I don't think it is a problem with the app itself but rather with shinyapps.

Is there a workaround?

6

@kyle_hekhuis Could you look into this if @Matt_Landis gives you details of the app? Based on all the reports, it seems possible there's a bug somewhere.

7

There is a known bug in shinyapps.io where the application lookup returns a 404 when two apps share the same name but differ by using dashes vs underscores. Until a fix is released, please try renaming or deleting one of the apps as a workaround.

8

That's great to know. I think that solved our issue. Thanks!

9

Automatic wake-up is not tied to a higher shinyapps.io tier. On the Basic plan, apps should still wake on request. Persistent 404s usually indicate a routing or deployment issue (e.g., renamed app, corrupted instance, or failed load). Redeploying the app or contacting Posit support is recommended.