# Wrong class being returned in association **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [August 29, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-class-being-returned-in-association/194057 "2010-08-29T12:39:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ecccb3/32.png) [@ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ji123)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-class-being-returned-in-association/194057/1 "2010-08-29T12:39:17Z")
I’m using Rails 3.0.0rc and have the following models: class User  has\_many :readings  has\_many :conversations, :through=\>:readings end class Reading  belongs\_to :user  belongs\_to :conversation end class Conversation  has\_many :readings  has\_many :users, :through=\>:readings end and this controller code: class ConversationsController  def show    @user = User.find(params[:user\_id])    @conversation = @user.conversations.find(params[:id])    debugger  end end After requesting conversations#show, go to debug console and: User.class.object\_id =\> 116350 @conversation.users.first.class.object\_id =\> 33660870 @conversation.users.first.instance\_of? User =\> true    # Right Then leave debugging and request the page again: User.class.object\_id =\> 116350 @conversation.users.first.class.object\_id =\> 36497930 @conversation.users.first.instance\_of? User =\> true    # Right And then, request the page again: User.class.object\_id =\> 116350 @conversation.users.first.class.object\_id =\> 36497930 @conversation.users.first.class.to\_s == User.to\_s =\> true @conversation.users.first.instance\_of? User =\> false    # Wrong! This last evaluation is wrong, and breaks equality checks and expressions such as @conversation.users.include?(some\_user) If I enable class caching, the problem disappears (but that’s not ideal for development). Maybe I’m doing something that breaks @reflection in association\_proxy.rb? Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ecccb3/32.png) [@ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ji123)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-class-being-returned-in-association/194057/2 "2010-08-29T14:19:04Z")
On Aug 29, 11:39 am, José Ignacio [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > This last evaluation is wrong, and breaks equality checks and > expressions such as @conversation.users.include?(some\_user) > > If I enable class caching, the problem disappears (but that’s not > ideal for development). Maybe I’m doing something that breaks > @reflection in association\_proxy.rb? Any ideas? Sounds like you might be breaking class reloading somehow. It’s possible to do this in such a way that you have both new and old versions of a class, which are then not equal. In the past I’ve found explicit require statements (rather than require\_dependency) could do that (because require doesn’t (or at least didn’t) invoke the dependency stuff at all). Models in plugins can also do this, because typically plugins aren’t reloaded, so if you have an association between a plugin model (that doesn’t get reloaded) and an application model (which does) then weird stuff happens. Fred ---
**Author:** ![ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ecccb3/32.png) [@ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ji123)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-class-being-returned-in-association/194057/3 "2010-08-29T14:24:11Z")
That makes a lot of sense. I’m using authlogic and acts\_as\_follower in the user model. Turning them off to check which one is producing the issue is hard, but I’ll have to try. Is there a way to force plugin classes to reload? Or, what could be the ‘best practice’ that is not being followed in these plugins? ---
**Author:** ![ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ecccb3/32.png) [@ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ji123)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-class-being-returned-in-association/194057/4 "2010-08-29T14:30:11Z")
On Aug 29, 1:24 pm, José Ignacio [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > That makes a lot of sense. I’m using authlogic and acts\_as\_follower in > the user model. Turning them off to check which one is producing the > issue is hard, but I’ll have to try. Is there a way to force plugin > classes to reload? Or, what could be the ‘best practice’ that is not > being followed in these plugins? In 2.3 you can remove stuff from ActiveSupport::load\_once\_paths - remove the path to the plugin’s lib dir and you should be fine (I think by the time initializers run plugins are all setup so that’s probably a good a place as any to do that) Fred ---
**Author:** ![ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/ecccb3/32.png) [@ji123](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ji123)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/wrong-class-being-returned-in-association/194057/5 "2010-08-29T16:44:26Z")
After some research it seems that’s not the cause of the problem. I created a blank project, removed all plugins and the error persisted: > User.last.conversations.find(Conversation.last.id).users.last.instance\_of?(User) > =\> true > reload! > Reloading… > =\> true > User.last.conversations.find(Conversation.last.id).users.last.instance\_of?(User) > =\> false I removed this line I had in the Conversation model: default\_scope :order =\> ‘updated\_at desc’ Now the models are exactly as shown in my first post, and now there’s no class bug. Of course, I have been testing with only one user, one conversation and one reading (otherwise the order in the default scope would make a big change in the query).