# Ugh! gem update -system broke something

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ugh-gem-update-system-broke-something/152747>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 7, 2008, 1:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ugh-gem-update-system-broke-something/152747 "2008-11-07T01:54:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cswebgrl)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 1:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ugh-gem-update-system-broke-something/152747/1 "2008-11-07T01:54:52Z")

</div>

Hi.

I ran gem update -system to upgrade from 0.9.4 on a Linux machine and  
now it’s broken.

If I run gem -v, I can see that I have version 1.3.1

If I run rake gems:install, I get

‘report\_activate\_error’:Could not find RubyGem rake

Can someone offer some guidance for how to fix this?

I don’t know what other details would be helpful. Rails is frozen in  
the vendor folder. Do I need to create a symbolic link to fix this, add  
a gem path or is a bigger problem?

THANKS!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cswebgrl)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ugh-gem-update-system-broke-something/152747/2 "2008-11-07T15:23:23Z")

</div>

The problem turned out to be that the update reinstalled gems in a  
different location than where the gems were installed. We needed to  
reinstall gems again and this time it installed in the correct spot.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cswebgrl)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ugh-gem-update-system-broke-something/152747/3 "2008-11-07T12:55:13Z")

</div>

hi,

try in your console,  
run this command \>gem list  
It shows list of gems,in these find rake is listed or not.(i thought its  
not installed)if not listed make install the gem.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@cswebgrl](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/cswebgrl)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 9:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ugh-gem-update-system-broke-something/152747/4 "2009-01-01T21:42:24Z")

</div>

Cs Webgrl wrote:

> The problem turned out to be that the update reinstalled gems in a  
> different location than where the gems were installed. We needed to  
> reinstall gems again and this time it installed in the correct spot.

Hello,  
I seem to have stumbled into the same problem.  
I have a number of gems installed on my Ubuntu box, and they all reside  
in

```
/var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/

```

But after doing

```
$ sudo gem update --system

```

and successfully upgrading to v.1.3.1, suddenly gems are being looked  
for in

```
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/

```

which is empty. In fact, doing

```
$ gem list

```

yielded ZERO gems. To test things, I then installed a new gem:

```
$ sudo gem install capistrano_colors

```

which succeeded. ‘gem list’ does report this one, and I found the  
package in

```
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/

```

Cs Webgrl says they reinstalled all gems to make things work again, but  
I wonder if there is a simpler, cleaner way to have the proper path  
restored.

Thanks in advance!  
Giuseppe