I'm experiencing a deployment issue where my application builds successfully but doesn't auto-start after deployment. The app only starts after a manual restart through the Railway dashboard.

Issue Details:

• Project ID:

• Service: petite-shelf (production)

• Framework: Python FastAPI application

• Start Command:python app.py

Symptoms:

1. Git push triggers build successfully (build logs show completion)

2. Deployment shows "Active" but no deployment logs appear

3. Message shows: "No deployment logs. All output sent to stdout will be displayed here"

4. Manual restart through dashboard immediately fixes the issue

5. App runs perfectly after manual restart

Timeline:

• App deployed successfully for 20+ days

• Issues started ~June 28-30 when we added:

  • Cron job configuration in railway.json

  • Historical data re-analysis features

• No issues with local development

What We've Tried:

1. Added print statements at top of app.py - work after manual restart

2. Removed Procfile to avoid config conflicts

3. Verified railway.json syntax

4. Tested with minimal Python script - same behavior

5. Checked for syntax errors - none found

6. Build succeeds with all dependencies installed

Current railway.json:

{
  "build": {
    "builder": "NIXPACKS"
  },
  "deploy": {
    "startCommand": "python app.py",
    "restartPolicyType": "ON_FAILURE",
    "restartPolicyMaxRetries": 10
  },
  "cron": [
    {
      "name": "daily-analysis",
      "schedule": "30 10 * * 1-5",
      "command": "python trigger_analysis.py"
    }
  ]
}

Questions:

1. Are there any known issues with cron jobs affecting deployment auto-start?

2. Is there a race condition between the cron configuration and main app startup?

3. Should we add a health check endpoint to help Railway determine readiness?

4. Are there any recent platform changes that might affect Python app startup?

The app works perfectly once manually restarted, suggesting the code is fine but something in the deployment pipeline isn't triggering the initial start correctly.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you