When trying to run this command on Ejabberd 2.1.5-3 with Erlang R14A
ejabberdctl dump /tmp/ejabberd1.text
to dump the registered users from ejabberd I receive
{error_logger,{{2012,5,17},{17,9,48}},"Too short cookie string",[]}
{error_logger,{{2012,5,17},{17,9,48}},crash_report,[[{initial_call,{auth,init,['Argument__1']}},{pid,<0.19.0>},{registered_name,[]},{error_info,{exit,{"Too short cookie string",[{auth,init_cookie,0},{auth,init,1},{gen_server,init_it,6},{proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3}]},[{gen_server,init_it,6},{proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3}]}},{ancestors,[net_sup,kernel_sup,<0.9.0>]},{messages,[]},{links,[<0.17.0>]},{dictionary,[]},{trap_exit,true},{status,running},{heap_size,987},{stack_size,24},{reductions,871}],[]]}
{error_logger,{{2012,5,17},{17,9,48}},supervisor_report,[{supervisor,{local,net_sup}},{errorContext,start_error},{reason,{"Too short cookie string",[{auth,init_cookie,0},{auth,init,1},{gen_server,init_it,6},{proc_lib,init_p_do_apply,3}]}},{offender,[{pid,undefined},{name,auth},{mfargs,{auth,start_link,[]}},{restart_type,permanent},{shutdown,2000},{child_type,worker}]}]}
{error_logger,{{2012,5,17},{17,9,48}},supervisor_report,[{supervisor,{local,kernel_sup}},{errorContext,start_error},{reason,shutdown},{offender,[{pid,undefined},{name,net_sup},{mfargs,{erl_distribution,start_link,[]}},{restart_type,permanent},{shutdown,infinity},{child_type,supervisor}]}]}
{error_logger,{{2012,5,17},{17,9,48}},std_info,[{application,kernel},{exited,{shutdown,{kernel,start,[normal,[]]}}},{type,permanent}]}
{"Kernel pid terminated",application_controller,"{application_start_failure,kernel,{shutdown,{kernel,start,[normal,[]]}}}"}
I tried removing the cookie file and restarting but this didn’t help.
The problem ended up being the version of Erlang and the version of Ejabberd were not compatible. Once I corrected the Erlang version the problem went away. Lesson here is to make sure you are running the recommended version of erlang for your ejabberd version.