# Gem update --system, now my local gems are missing

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-update-system-now-my-local-gems-are-missing/123463>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [December 18, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-update-system-now-my-local-gems-are-missing/123463 "2007-12-18T00:15:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ddancer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@ddancer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ddancer)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 12:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-update-system-now-my-local-gems-are-missing/123463/1 "2007-12-18T00:15:48Z")

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hi,

I just did a “gem update --system” to 0.9.5, but now when I do “gem  
list” I get nothing.

The gems are still there, I can “ls” them.

I seem to recall seeing other people have this issue, but I don’t recall  
the fix. Nor is my googling turning up anything useful.

thanks

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ddancer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@ddancer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ddancer)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 12:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-update-system-now-my-local-gems-are-missing/123463/2 "2007-12-18T00:31:35Z")

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Andy K. wrote:

> thanks

I think I see my problem,

my gems are in ‘/var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/’

but now gem is looking in ‘/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/’

so I exported GEM\_HOME in my .bashrc to my place.

probably the real problem is that I’ve got a Debian that had rubygems  
installed from package, but now I just ran roughshod over that  
install…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ddancer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@ddancer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ddancer)\
**Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 1:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/gem-update-system-now-my-local-gems-are-missing/123463/3 "2007-12-18T01:46:01Z")

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On Dec 17, 2007, at 15:28 PM, Andy K. wrote:

> my gems are in ‘/var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/’
> 
> but now gem is looking in ‘/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/’
> 
> so I exported GEM\_HOME in my .bashrc to my place.
> 
> probably the real problem is that I’ve got a Debian that had  
> rubygems installed from package, but now I just ran roughshod over  
> that install…

Yup. Don’t do that. If you didn’t install RubyGems yourself, don’t  
upgrade it yourself.