Empty text_area yields 'Template is missing' error

Rails
1

PROBLEM STATEMENT

My app gives a missing-template error if the user enters nothing into a
provided text_area. But if something is provided, everything works
fine.

I’m still a newbie, so I don’t really understand the automatic
connection between things. Is it a problem that I have
“views/thingee/new.rhtml” and a “create” method in
“controllers/thingee_controller.rb”, where . stands for my thingee. I’m
guessing not, since it’s OK if I give content to the text_area. But
maybe I’m still supposed to follow a convention, and the problem only
crops up with empty content …???

You can tell by the fact that I write “thingee” that I don’t really know
what words to use for things, and I’ve not discovered a standard
convention by scanning these forum postings.

APPLICATION SETUP

  1. In views/thingees/new.rhtml

<% form_for :foo, :url => {:action => ‘create’} do |form| %>
<%= form.text_area :content, :cols => 60, :rows => 4 %>
<%= text_field_with_auto_complete :tag, :content, { :size => 60},
{:skip_style => false, :tokens => [’ ', ‘,’, ‘;’]} %>
<%= submit_tag “Submit” %>
<% end %>

  1. In app/controllers/thingees_controller

def create
…
if @rabbit.save
(NEVER GETS HERE)
…

  1. In app/db/migrate/001_create_thingees.rb

    …
    t.column :content, :text, :default => “”

    NB. I’ve also tried no default, and a nil default.