Nginx upstream servers status

[mex]

i'd suggest you'll start with low-level-debugging:
- goto host1 and make a tcpdump port 8080 / tail -f against access-logs
of that server; 
- make a request
- check., what happens to that request, e.g. where it "hangs"

you could also, just in case, make a "tcpdump port 808 and host host2" onm
your nginx, just to make sure that nginx is sending the requests to the
right server

Posted at Nginx Forum: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,240513,240523#msg-240523