I recently upgraded the Daystream web app to Ruby on Rails 7. Everything went rather smoothly, but I did discover a hidden issue a few days ago. Basically, images in articles weren't being rendered.

It took me a couple days, but I finally tracked the issue down to a change in the default variant processor in Rails' Active Storage Module. Turns out, Amazon's Linux doesn't seem to be configured with the new default processor (vips), so the servers couldn't render the images whenever a relevant article was requested.

Fixing the problem was straightforward - a simple settings change to use the default processor from Rails 6 (mini_magick) instead of the new default (I decided this was easier than installing vips on the AWS servers).

So, articles are now being rendered in their full glory again, letting me reflect on some of my favorites, like The Hustler is not a Pool Movie.