# \-517611318:Fixnum ... WTF?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/517611318-fixnum-wtf/52783>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 19, 2006, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/517611318-fixnum-wtf/52783 "2006-01-19T02:09:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kylemathews)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/517611318-fixnum-wtf/52783/1 "2006-01-19T02:09:54Z")

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I’m getting occasional errors that look like:

Some method called for -517611318:Fixnum

The method is constantly changing, and this error happens on ~5% of  
the page loads on my Mac Tiger development box. It’s happening on  
Ruby 1.8.2, and 1.8.4 compiled from source. I haven’t seen it on my  
Linux production boxes. I was wondering if anyone had seen this  
before?

–  
Kyle M.  
Chief Technologist  
E Factor Media // FN Interactive  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
1-866-263-3261

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**Author:** ![kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kylemathews)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/517611318-fixnum-wtf/52783/2 "2006-01-19T02:12:58Z")

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Yes, I’ve seen that when doing many many operations per second on a  
“development” instance. When I change it to “production” it goes away.  
I haven’t really had time to track this down, so when I am loading the  
data for my dev instance, I usually change the ENV to “production”,  
dump and reload the data from the DB and then start over in  
“development” … Not very smart but works for me 🙂

/B

On 19/01/06, Kyle M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> –

–  
Bruno M. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
Currently in: Sydney, Australia

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kylemathews)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/517611318-fixnum-wtf/52783/3 "2006-01-19T02:46:16Z")

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Apparently this can happen if you’ve compiled ruby using GCC 4.0. Run  
‘gcc\_select 3.3’ and recompile/reinstall, it should remove the  
problem. Don’t forget to run ‘gcc\_select 4.0’ afterwards though!

Cheers,

-DF

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/51bf81/32.png) [@kylemathews](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kylemathews)\
**Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/517611318-fixnum-wtf/52783/4 "2006-01-19T22:11:15Z")

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On Jan 18, 2006, at 5:07 PM, David F. wrote:

> Apparently this can happen if you’ve compiled ruby using GCC 4.0. Run  
> ‘gcc\_select 3.3’ and recompile/reinstall, it should remove the  
> problem. Don’t forget to run ‘gcc\_select 4.0’ afterwards though!

This is not a guaranteed fix, GCC 4 just makes the problem more easy  
to encounter. See the ruby-core archives.

Also note you may have linking problems with libraries built using a  
different version of GCC.

–  
Eric H. - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [http://segment7.net](http://segment7.net)  
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

[http://trackmap.robotcoop.com](http://trackmap.robotcoop.com)