Location directive for Nginx not being observed - nginx

Question

I have a Ruby on Rails application that is working great with the nginx configuration pasted below. The problem is, I'm trying to add a new url http://www.example.com/gpp that will point to a completely directory path/app on the server. Here's my configuration:
upstream fi {
server unix:/media/apps/example/shared/tmp/pids/thin.0.sock;
server unix:/media/apps/example/shared/tmp/pids/thin.1.sock;
server unix:/media/apps/example/shared/tmp/pids/thin.2.sock;
server unix:/media/apps/example/shared/tmp/pids/thin.3.sock;
}
server {
listen 80;
gzip on;
gzip_min_length 1000;
gzip_types application/json text/css application/x-javascript;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
sendfile on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
client_max_body_size 2m;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
#root /media/apps/example/current/public;
location ^~ /assets/ {
gzip_static on;
expires max;
add_header Cache-Control public;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
root /usr/share/nginx/html;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location / {
root /media/apps/example/current/public;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_connect_timeout 3600;
send_timeout 3600;
proxy_read_timeout 3600;
if (!-f $request_filename) {
proxy_pass http://fi;
break;
}
}
location /gpp {
alias /media/apps/podcast;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
}
}
Whenever I visit http://www.example.com/gpp it just goes to the Rails app listed in location / instead of the PHP app I have running in /media/apps/podcast. I also tried changing the alias directive to root but that doesn't do the trick either.

Answer 1

I don't see a location directive for your /media/apps/podcast alias. I think this
location /gpp {
alias /media/apps/podcast;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
}
should just be
location /gpp {
root /media/apps/podcast;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
}

Answer 2

Give this a try:
location /podcast {
root /media/apps/;
index index.php index.html index.htm;
location ~ ^/podcast/(.+\.php)$ {
try_files $uri =404;
root /media/apps/;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_index index.php;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location ~* ^/podcast/(.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html|xml|txt))$ {
root /media/apps/;
}
}
location /gpp {
rewrite ^/* /podcast last;
}