I've got a webmachine project that also has a process running in the background that performs a task and stores the data in an ETS table.
When I don't make a request to the application for about an hour, the request takes a long time and the data in the ETS table has gone.
It looks like the webmachine app shuts down due to inactivity. Is this true? And then is there a way to tell it not to?
The application is hosted on heroku, and the module that is running in the background updating the ETS table is started up in the Procfile
This isn't webmachine shutting the app down, this is Heroku spinning down your instance. The only way to make it not shut down is to have an external service ping your server every 10 minutes or so, or pay the approx. $36 to keep a web dyno running.