Updating ontology metadata sometimes fails with Faraday::TimeoutError

[jvendetti]

Received a complaint on the support list from a user that tried to remove an administrator from their ontology via the "Edit Ontology Information" form in the BioPortal UI, and received a 500 error. This form is accessed in the UI by going to any ontology summary page, e.g., http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ontologies/ECSO, and clicking the "Edit ontology information" link.

The production log file shows a Faraday::Timeout error:

I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.646950 #21412]  INFO -- : Completed 500 Internal Server Error in 60274ms (ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)
F, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.649109 #21412] FATAL -- :
Faraday::TimeoutError (read timeout reached):
  app/controllers/ontologies_controller.rb:398:in `update'

I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.650174 #21412]  INFO -- : Processing by ErrorsController#internal_server_error as HTML
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.650307 #21412]  INFO -- :   Parameters: {"utf8"=>"✓", "authenticity_token"=>"", "ontology"=>{"name"=>"The Ecosystem Ontology", "administeredBy"=>["", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/brycemecum", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/mobb", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/schild"], "viewingRestriction"=>"public", "acl"=>["", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/cjones", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/mobb", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/schild", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/sophisticus", "http://data.bioontology.org/users/xixiluo"], "hasDomain"=>["", "", "http://data.bioontology.org/categories/Other"], "isView"=>"0", "subscribe_notifications"=>"1"}, "commit"=>"Save ontology", "id"=>"ECSO"}
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.655224 #21412]  INFO -- :   Rendered errors/internal_server_error.html.erb within layouts/ontology (2.0ms)
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.658264 #21412]  INFO -- :   Rendered layouts/_topnav.html.haml (1.8ms)
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.658598 #21412]  INFO -- :   Rendered layouts/_notices.html.erb (0.2ms)
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.658686 #21412]  INFO -- :   Rendered layouts/_header.html.erb (3.2ms)
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.659514 #21412]  INFO -- :   Rendered layouts/_footer.html.erb (0.7ms)
I, [2017-04-05T10:47:07.659725 #21412]  INFO -- : Completed 500 Internal Server Error in 9ms (Views: 7.5ms | ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)

Just FYI - I removed the value of the authenticity token in the parameter list above.

Calling the update method in this project on an ontology object results in a read timeout. I wasn't able to reproduce this behavior after several attempts. We'll need to investigate under what circumstances the timeouts occur.