Irreversible, reproducible ckan site crash while installing DataPusher on Mac

I am trying to build a ckan (v2.3) data portal on my MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10.3 using Homebrew. Although I had to make minor adjustments to the official documentation to make the install from the original work for me, I was able to run it with Solr and Tomcat and install the DataStore and FileStore components without incident. I can, using the sysadmin account, upload files and upload them again without problem.

The problem is I am trying to install the DataPusher to try and make sure the user-loaded data is automatically put into the DataStore. After the "Development" section of the tutorial here , some very strange things come up.

• First of all, although the "PORT" variable in my setup for installing the DataStore is set by default (8800) and nothing is blocking on port 8800, the actual service seems to insist on port 8000. I wouldn't think it should affect whatever, but in the interests of documenting all the strange behavior, I leave it here.

• Second, as soon as I specify my url to install ccan DataPusher to the correct port and enable the application and all its defaults in the ckan development.ini file, my ckan installation instantly becomes completely unusable. The first page displays fine, but every time I try to login or register myself as any user, I get this traceback (sorry for the length):

File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/weberror/evalexception.py', line 431 in respond
  app_iter = self.application(environ, detect_start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/dec.py', line 147 in __call__
  resp = self.call_func(req, *args, **self.kwargs)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/dec.py', line 208 in call_func
  return self.func(req, *args, **kwargs)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/fanstatic/publisher.py', line 234 in __call__
  return request.get_response(self.app)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/request.py', line 1053 in get_response
  application, catch_exc_info=False)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/request.py', line 1022 in call_application
  app_iter = application(self.environ, start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/dec.py', line 147 in __call__
  resp = self.call_func(req, *args, **self.kwargs)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/dec.py', line 208 in call_func
  return self.func(req, *args, **kwargs)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/fanstatic/injector.py', line 54 in __call__
  response = request.get_response(self.app)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/request.py', line 1053 in get_response
  application, catch_exc_info=False)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/webob/request.py', line 1022 in call_application
  app_iter = application(self.environ, start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/beaker/middleware.py', line 73 in __call__
  return self.app(environ, start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/beaker/middleware.py', line 155 in __call__
  return self.wrap_app(environ, session_start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/routes/middleware.py', line 131 in __call__
  response = self.app(environ, start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/wsgiapp.py', line 125 in __call__
  response = self.dispatch(controller, environ, start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/wsgiapp.py', line 324 in dispatch
  return controller(environ, start_response)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/lib/base.py', line 338 in __call__
  res = WSGIController.__call__(self, environ, start_response)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/controllers/core.py', line 221 in __call__
  response = self._dispatch_call()
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/controllers/core.py', line 172 in _dispatch_call
  response = self._inspect_call(func)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/controllers/core.py', line 107 in _inspect_call
  result = self._perform_call(func, args)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/controllers/core.py', line 60 in _perform_call
  return func(**args)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/controllers/home.py', line 182 in index
  return base.render('home/index.html', cache_force=True)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/lib/base.py', line 217 in render
  loader_class=loader_class)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pylons/templating.py', line 249 in cached_template
  return render_func()
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/lib/base.py', line 155 in render_template
  return render_jinja2(template_name, globs)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/lib/base.py', line 104 in render_jinja2
  return template.render(**extra_vars)
File '/usr/lib/ckan/default/lib/python2.7/site-packages/jinja2/environment.py', line 894 in render
  return self.environment.handle_exception(exc_info, True)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/home/index.html', line 2 in top-level template code
  {% set homepage_style = ( g.homepage_style or '1' ) %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/page.html', line 1 in top-level template code
  {% extends "base.html" %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/base.html', line 103 in top-level template code
  {%- block page %}{% endblock -%}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/page.html', line 14 in block "page"
  {%- block header %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/page.html', line 15 in block "header"
  {% include "header.html" %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/header.html', line 1 in top-level template code
  {% block header_wrapper %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/header.html', line 2 in block "header_wrapper"
  {% block header_account %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/header.html', line 5 in block "header_account"
  {% block header_account_container_content %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/header.html', line 9 in block "header_account_container_content"
  {% block header_account_logged %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/templates/header.html', line 23 in block "header_account_logged"
  {% set new_activities = h.new_activities() %}
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/lib/helpers.py', line 1855 in new_activities
  return action({}, {})
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/logic/__init__.py', line 424 in wrapped
  result = _action(context, data_dict, **kw)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/logic/action/get.py', line 3259 in dashboard_new_activities_count
  context, data_dict)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/logic/__init__.py', line 424 in wrapped
  result = _action(context, data_dict, **kw)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/logic/__init__.py', line 510 in wrapper
  return action(context, data_dict)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/logic/action/get.py', line 3190 in dashboard_activity_list
  limit=limit, offset=offset)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/model/activity.py', line 298 in dashboard_activity_list
  q = _dashboard_activity_query(user_id, limit + offset)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/model/activity.py', line 283 in _dashboard_activity_query
  q1 = _user_activity_query(user_id, limit)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/model/activity.py', line 126 in _user_activity_query
  return _activities_union_all(q1, q2)
File '/Users/<user>/ckan/lib/default/src/ckan/ckan/model/activity.py', line 96 in _activities_union_all
  return model.Session.query(model.Activity).select_entity_from(
AttributeError: 'Query' object has no attribute 'select_entity_from'

      

        
        
        
      

    

It looks like it has something to do with how the last user activity is displayed, but after that I don't know what's going on. Common sense would seem to dictate that I can just disable the plugin and everything will be fine, but unfortunately, this is not the case. Even when I disconnect from the DataPusher plugin in the ini file and completely stop the service, this error persists. It effectively wipes out my entire ckan installation and the only way I was able to get it working again is to install ckan again from source.

The first time this happened, it seemed, was an accident. I realized that something was corrupted in my database, so I uninstalled ckan, removed all PostgreSQL databases and re-installed everything from scratch. The same thing happened. If anyone can help me understand why this error is happening, and more broadly why installing DataPusher destroys my ckan sites forever, I would be very grateful. Thanks for your help.