# Weird errors with self-installed ruby 1.8.3 on Mac OS X 10.4

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-errors-with-self-installed-ruby-1-8-3-on-mac-os-x-10-4/49171>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 30, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-errors-with-self-installed-ruby-1-8-3-on-mac-os-x-10-4/49171 "2005-11-30T22:10:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jon.evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jon.evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jon.evans)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 10:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-errors-with-self-installed-ruby-1-8-3-on-mac-os-x-10-4/49171/1 "2005-11-30T22:10:59Z")

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Hi All,

I’m hoping someone has seen this error before and can advise me.

I was having problems with Switchtower hanging, and I found a blog  
posting which pointed the finger at Apple’s install of Ruby 1.8.2  
(?). I downloaded ruby-1.8.3.tar.gz, compiled it with --enable-  
shared, and installed it under /usr/local.

I went through /usr/bin and /usr/lib and archived away all of the  
Apple bins and libs. Then I installed RubyGems. The install of the  
rake gem went fine, but the rails install bombed out with a segfault.

I have found that it crashes while installing a gem, but not every  
time. For example, here I install activesupport OK, then uninstall  
it, then try again, at which point it fails:

> Successfully uninstalled activesupport version 1.2.3  
> line 125 column 49
> 
> Before reporting this, could you check that the file  
> you’re documenting compiles cleanly–RDoc is not a  
> full Ruby parser, and gets confused easily if fed  
> invalid programs.
> 
> The internal error was:
> 
> ERROR: While executing gem … (TypeError)  
> wrong instance allocation

The error message changes. Here’s another example:

> RDoc failure in lib/active\_support/core\_ext/time/calculations.rb at  
> or around line 29 column 56
> 
> Before reporting this, […]
> 
> The internal error was:
> 
> ERROR: While executing gem … (NameError)  
> uninitialized constant RubyToken::TkReading2TokenNoKey

The computer is a PowerBook with 1.5GB RAM. Every other application  
works fine and the machine is stable, so I’m fairly certin it’s not a  
hardware problem (my first thought when I got the segfault).

I tried the preview of 1.8.4 with the same result.

plinth:~ evansj$ ruby -v  
ruby 1.8.4 (2005-10-29) [powerpc-darwin8.3.0]  
plinth:~ evansj$ gem -v  
0.8.11

Apple’s ruby worked great, apart from switchtower.

Jon

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**Author:** ![jon.evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jon.evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jon.evans)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 2:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-errors-with-self-installed-ruby-1-8-3-on-mac-os-x-10-4/49171/2 "2005-12-01T14:14:44Z")

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Hi All,

On 30 Nov 2005, at 21:08, Jon Evans wrote:

> I’m hoping someone has seen this error before and can advise me.

Obviously I’m in a minority here…

For the benefit of Google, I seem to now have a stable system after  
configuring ruby like this:

./configure --enable-shared --enable-pthread

Without the --enable-pthread, it seemed to work fine but I got those  
weird errors thrown by gem install. Also, switchtower can now  
connect to my server over ssh (it used to hang).

Jon

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jon.evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/67e7ee/32.png) [@jon.evans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jon.evans)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/weird-errors-with-self-installed-ruby-1-8-3-on-mac-os-x-10-4/49171/3 "2005-12-22T20:26:40Z")

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I have been experiencing this same issue I am going to reconfig ruby  
in hopes of making it better… I too am on Tiger with a hand built  
ruby/gems/fcgi

So, I feel your pain 🙂  
Chris