# Rare variable name corruption

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rare-variable-name-corruption/110966>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [August 1, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rare-variable-name-corruption/110966 "2007-08-01T15:44:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![giaco](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@giaco](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/giaco)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 3:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rare-variable-name-corruption/110966/1 "2007-08-01T15:44:31Z")

</div>

I’m having a problem with a rails app occasionally getting a variable  
name corrupted. For example, a form field person[last\_name] may be sent  
to the browser as person[last\_9ame]. Or a similarly corrupted field name  
may be sent in a SQL query. Restarting the affected process solves the  
problem.

I’m running Rails 1.2.3, Ruby 1.8.6, and Mongrel on 64 bit Ubuntu 7.04.

I suppose bad memory is a possibility but before I put this machine in  
production, I ran MemTest for about a week with no errors. I’m also not  
having problems with any other processes on server. Also I would think  
that bad memory would be at least as likely to crash the ruby/mongrel  
process as to always corrupt a variable name, and I’m not having any  
problem with my ruby/mongrel processes crashing.

The problem only occurs every month or two, and I don’t have anyway to  
duplicate it.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

–  
Jack C.  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid