opscode-cookbooks/rabbitmq — pull request #102 by rathboma (2014-02-21 17:46:50+00:00)
Title: Changing the erlang cookie prevents the service from being restarted

The init script depends on the erlang cookie to operate, thus if you change the cookie, you cannot restart the service.

The solution is to first stop the service, then change the cookie, then start the service.