# DBI: connect succeeds in IRB, fails in Rails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dbi-connect-succeeds-in-irb-fails-in-rails/173945>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 18, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dbi-connect-succeeds-in-irb-fails-in-rails/173945 "2009-08-18T16:45:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dbi-connect-succeeds-in-irb-fails-in-rails/173945/1 "2009-08-18T16:45:30Z")

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require ‘dbi’ # 0.4.2  
dbh = DBI.connect(‘DBI:ODBC:PACS’, ‘username’, ‘password’)

This works in IRB; in Rails it fails (taken from Rails console):  
DBI::InterfaceError: Unable to load driver ‘ODBC’ (underlying error:  
uninitialized constant DBI::DBD::ODBC)  
from C:/scripts/Rads/vendor/gems/dbi-0.4.2/lib/dbi.rb:300:in  
`load_driver' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in`synchronize’  
from C:/scripts/Rads/vendor/gems/dbi-0.4.2/lib/dbi.rb:242:in  
`load_driver' from C:/scripts/Rads/vendor/gems/dbi-0.4.2/lib/dbi.rb:160:in`\_get\_full\_driver’  
from C:/scripts/Rads/vendor/gems/dbi-0.4.2/lib/dbi.rb:145:in  
`connect’  
from (irb):2

I haven’t found anything online that was a substantial help 😕

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\
**Post date:** [August 18, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dbi-connect-succeeds-in-irb-fails-in-rails/173945/2 "2009-08-18T16:53:09Z")

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Oh – Ruby 1.8.7, and I can connect by writing a small script and  
launching it with Ruby (same version of Ruby that Rails uses).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@trevoke](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/trevoke)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2009, 2:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dbi-connect-succeeds-in-irb-fails-in-rails/173945/3 "2009-08-19T14:24:34Z")

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gem install dbd-odbc

(who knows why it worked without me doing that beforehand; maybe some  
gem update and it forgot that this existed, or overwrote files… ?)

And a reinstallation of ruby-odbc :  
[http://www.ch-werner.de/rubyodbc/](http://www.ch-werner.de/rubyodbc/)