Question: I am interested in what are the steps to get some idea on what is going on during those 60 seconds that prevents the launch and usual causes to this.

This is how the logfile looks (tells nothing about what was actualy going on)

```
2013-01-14T10:34:17+00:00 app[web.1]: => Booting Thin
2013-01-14T10:34:17+00:00 app[web.1]: => Call with -d to detach
2013-01-14T10:34:17+00:00 app[web.1]: => Rails 3.2.2 application starting in production on http://0.0.0.0:52216
2013-01-14T10:34:17+00:00 app[web.1]: => Ctrl-C to shutdown server
2013-01-14T10:34:23+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Error R10 (Boot timeout) -> Web process failed to bind to $PORT within 60 seconds of launch
2013-01-14T10:34:23+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Stopping process with SIGKILL
2013-01-14T10:34:24+00:00 heroku[web.1]: Process exited with status 137
2013-01-14T10:34:24+00:00 heroku[web.1]: State changed from starting to crashed

```

I think if there was at least a stack trace that shows, when the process was killed, it would be very helpful. 

**What are the things you do / check when this happens?**

PS: I am not looking for an answer to my case, but steps in general, which everyone can benefit from.

Answer: 
I usually start by figuring out what gems are taking a long time with the following code (initializers/debug\_require.rb):

```
if ENV['DEBUG_REQUIRE']
  require 'benchmark'

  def require(file)
    @@first ||= Time.now
    rc = false
    ts = Benchmark.measure do
      rc = super
    end
    if ENV['DEBUG_REQUIRE'].to_f < ts.total
      total = ts.format("%t require #{file}")
      from_start = (Time.now - @@first).to_i
      $stdout.puts "#{total} (#{from_start} second(s) from start)"
    end
    rc
  end
end

```

Add this to config/boot.rb:

```
require File.expand_path('../initializers/debug_require', __FILE__)

```

And set `heroku config:add DEBUG_REQUIRE=1`

Watch the log output for slow requires.
Maybe you could try to run it local to check what is going on? You could do use the code available on this post to do it:
<http://ablogaboutcode.com/2012/05/03/benchmark-your-bundle/>

As it is explained on [Heroku App Boot Timeout](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9677417/heroku-app-boot-timeout) discussion, you should take a look in the number of gems you are requiring and maybe first adjust them. You could also take a look at this gem to if your boot load takes more than 60 secs:
<https://github.com/dblock/heroku-forward>.