rails 2 debug connection reset by peer error

I have multiple apps running in the same server.

I have this issue with this one application which is rails 2 and ruby 1.8.x which does the following:

1. 
   

   The users Upload a spreadsheet with some company information and username though the UI.

   
   


2. 
   

   Once the file is uploaded it hits a external service to create client certificates based on the information provided.

   
   


3. 
   

   It then stores the certificate information in the database.

   
   

The problem I am having is sometimes the controller just errors out with the following:

"Connection Reset by peer"

Note this is an internal app and will be used by 2 people at the most.

And the error does not seem to happen everytime. It happens every now and then and the size of the file does not seem to be the issue.

Sometimes it goes through without any error for large files and sometimes it fails on small files. Sometimes the same file upload passes the second time I looked at the web service logs and it does not have any errors.

I looked at the web logs and found the following:

4.0.10/lib/phusion_passenger/rack/thread_handler_extension.rb:77:in process_request'/opt/ruby-1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.10/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler/thread_handler.rb:140:inaccept_and_process_next_request'/opt/ruby-1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.10/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler/thread_handler.rb:108:in main_loop'/opt/ruby-1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.10/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler.rb:441:in start_threads'/opt/ruby-1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.10/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler.rb:435:in `initialize'/opt/ruby-1.9.3/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-4.0.10/lib/phusion_passenger/request_handler.rb:435 Redirected to http://my-url?flash%5Berror%5D=Unable+to+process+uploaded+file.+Please+make+sure+you+provided+a+valid+excel+%28.xls%29+file.+Detailed+error+message%3A+Connection+reset+by+peer

Is there something on the passenger apache config that I might be able to fix and test?

Maybe increase the PassengerMaxPoolSize & PassengerPoolIdleTime?

I dont want to play with the config without understanding it well.