[rabbitmq-discuss] Shovel terminated status

[Elizabeth Liao]

Hi,

I've been doing some tests with shovel to understand it better and I have a couple questions about the termination state. 

My setup:
I'm using RabbitMQ 2.8.2 with the configuration file at https://gist.github.com/3360344#.  Additionally, I'm forcing shovel into the terminated state by declaring BroadcastExchange as a fanout exchange instead of a topic exchange.  The terminated shovel status (from the last shovel) is as follows:
{shovel3,
     {terminated,
         {{shutdown,
              {server_initiated_close,406,
                  <<"PRECONDITION_FAILED - cannot redeclare exchange 'BroadcastExchange' in vhost '/' with different type, durable, internal or autodelete value">>}},
          {gen_server,call,
              [<4888.2466.1>,
               {call,
                   {'exchange.declare',0,<<"BroadcastExchange">>,
                       <<"topic">>,false,true,false,false,false,[]},
                   none,<4888.2457.1>},
               infinity]}}},
     {{2012,8,21},{11,11,32}}}]


Questions:
In the documentation, it states that the timestamp from  $ rabbitmqctl eval 'rabbit_shovel_status:status().' is the time when shovel entered the state.  I've observed this for the running and starting state but not for the terminated state.  The timestamp for the terminated state appears to be the current time.  Does this have to do with the specific way I'm setting up the termination condition?  Additionally, it seems when a shovel is in the terminated state and periodically trying to reconnect, there are many connections left open with no active channels.  Is this from the shovel connection attempts?  How can I avoid this?

Thanks!

Liz