File_column exception when file is unexpectedly deleted

file_column does not handle inconsistency between the database and
filesystem well.

If I define an url_for_image_column like this:

url_for_image_column(
@ad.images.first,
“image”,
{
:geometry => “120x90”,
}
)

It returns a wellformed url for the resized image.

BUT if I accidentally delete the image-file from the filesystem (in the
folder public/image/etc…), the above code results in a a NoMethodError

NoMethodError in User#welcome
Showing app/views/shared/_ad_list_frame_dog_sell.rhtml where line #60
raised:

You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!
You might have expected an instance of Array.
The error occurred while evaluating nil.split

What is the problem?