# Error Starting Rails - DEPRECATED\_INSTANCE\_VARIABLES **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 13, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/error-starting-rails-deprecated-instance-variables/91875 "2007-04-13T00:20:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 12:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/error-starting-rails-deprecated-instance-variables/91875/1 "2007-04-13T00:20:52Z")
Hi, I’ve got a rails app happily working on my Vista laptop. I’ve installed a ubuntu slice using VMWorkstation to try & replicate my hosting environment. I think I’ve installed everything as I should, I’m running Edge rails, & the below error occurs when I start the server. Can someone please point me in the right direction to sort this? rgds, - matt. =\> Rails application starting on [http://0.0.0.0:3000](http://0.0.0.0:3000) =\> Call with -d to detach =\> Ctrl-C to shutdown server \*\* Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000 \*\* Starting Rails with development environment… Exiting /home/matt/Desktop/Rails Websites/www.tickex.com/trunk/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active\_support/dependencies.rb:477:in `const_missing': uninitialized constant ActionController::Base::DEPRECATED_INSTANCE_VARIABLES (NameError) from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.13.3/lib/action_view/base.rb:160 from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem\_original\_require’ from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom\_require.rb:27:in `require' from /home/matt/Desktop/Rails Websites/www.tickex.com/trunk/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:495:in `require’ from /home/matt/Desktop/Rails Websites/www.tickex.com/trunk/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active\_support/dependencies.rb:342:in `new_constants_in' from /home/matt/Desktop/Rails Websites/www.tickex.com/trunk/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:495:in `require’ from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.13.3/lib/action\_view.rb:25 from /usr/local/lib/ruby/site\_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom\_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require' ... 42 levels... from /home/matt/Desktop/Rails Websites/www.tickex.com/trunk/vendor/rails/activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:495:in `require’ from /home/matt/Desktop/Rails Websites/www.tickex.com/trunk/vendor/rails/railties/lib/commands/server.rb:39 from script/server:3:in `require’ from script/server:3 ---
**Author:** ![matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 7:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/error-starting-rails-deprecated-instance-variables/91875/2 "2007-04-21T19:29:34Z")
Matt S. wrote: > `const\_missing’: uninitialized constant > ActionController::Base::DEPRECATED\_INSTANCE\_VARIABLES (NameError) > from I’m running into the same problem on a debian install (not a virtual machine). I would appreciate and information you might have discovered to help solve this problem! Jeremy ---
**Author:** ![matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/error-starting-rails-deprecated-instance-variables/91875/3 "2007-04-21T22:48:57Z")
Hi, could you post the relevant code? -Conrad ---
**Author:** ![matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/error-starting-rails-deprecated-instance-variables/91875/4 "2007-04-22T16:41:41Z")
Conrad T. wrote: > Hi, could you post the relevant code? > > -Conrad Hmm. That’s the problem, I don’t know what the relevant code is. This happens whenever mongrel\_rails is started. It also happens when I start script/console: $ script/console Loading development environment. /home/jeremy/sites/dnweb/vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/…/…/activesupport/lib/active\_support/dependencies.rb:477:in `const_missing':NameError: uninitialized constant ActionController::Base::DEPRECATED_INSTANCE_VARIABLES /home/jeremy/sites/dnweb/app/controllers/application.rb:2:in`helper’:ArgumentError: wrong number of arguments (1 for 0) > > Now, application.rb, line 2, simply has : helper :all I don’t see why “helper” would require zero arguments. We’re using edge rails, the most recent release (as of Friday). It’s frozen in our /vendor tree. This same setup works well under OSX but fails on debian. If I remove the vendor/rails tree and let it drop back to the installed version of rails (1.2.3) via gem, it fails as well: $ script/console Loading development environment. /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.2.3/lib/initializer.rb:328:in `send':NoMethodError: undefined method`session=’ for ActionController::Base:Class I suspect there is some version mismatch between rails and something in our debian environment. Or perhaps there’s something rails needs that is missing. I was hoping someone had seen this problem before and would reply “Hey, you just need to do X,Y,Z and it’s easy to fix.” Guess not? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/ed655f/32.png) [@matthew](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/matthew)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2007, 12:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/error-starting-rails-deprecated-instance-variables/91875/5 "2007-04-23T00:58:33Z")
Ok, I found the problem(s)… updating to ruby 1.8.5 (had 1.8.4 previously) fixed the DEPRECATED\_INSTANCE\_VARIABLES error. As for the other two errors I had with helper and session: 1. helper problem: I’m not really sure why, but the following code, in app/controllers/application.rb, worked under OSX, using rails 1.2.3 and ruby 1.8.5: class ApplicationController \< ActionController::Base helper :all However, under my debian environment, it failed. So I changed it to load the helpers I needed: class ApplicationController \< ActionController::Base helper :css, :text, :list, etc… 1. `send':NoMethodError: undefined method`session=’ for ActionController::Base:Class I had this line in environment.rb: config.action\_controller.session = { :secret =\> “xxxxxx” } I remember putting this line in a long time ago when troubleshooting problems with sessions. I had read online that this helped. In any case, I had to remove it to make the error message go away. It does not seem like it was really needed, since the app works now 🙂