How to fix "uninitialized constant Gem::GEM_PRELUDE_SUCKAGE" in RubyGems tasks

Question

My RubyGems isn't working, throwing an error which goes as follows, triggering (nearly) on any Gem task:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rubygems.rb:1081:in `<top (required)>': uninitialized constant Gem::GEM_PRELUDE_SUCKAGE (NameError)
    from <internal:gem_prelude>:1:in `require'
    from <internal:gem_prelude>:1:in `<compiled>'

I'm new to Ruby / RubyGems / installing Ruby and all I know is that an uninitialized constant is essentially a undefined variable. It could also be possible that it's something with Ruby itself, although the ->Gem:GEM<-_PRELUDE_SUCKAGE points me to RubyGems.

In a nutshell, I installed a bunch of Ruby things (think RVM, rbenv, etc.) to develop Ruby on Rails, as I thought it would be a good way to learn Ruby.

Well, after going through a long and tedious process to upgrade Ruby to 2.6.3, then downgrade to 2.5.5 and then 2.4.0, then back up to 2.5.5 and solving downgrade issues, RubyGems throws the error. I settled on 2.5.5 because 2.6.3 caused errors and 2.4.0 was too early of a version.

It's causing all sorts of errors, like HAML not compiling and Rails not making a controller. I really don't know what's happening.

If I run gem install [gem name], it throws the error. Running rails generate controller [name] index (for those not familiar to Rails this creates, well, a controller) it throws the error. Doing anything really with the gem command causes the error, except for gem server.

If I upgrade back up to the latest Ruby version, I fear that my gem command will go all wonky again and I'll have to go through another day of troubleshooting versions. How do I fix this, or at least get rid of the message so I can create things again?

Answer 1

I had this happen to me just today. It seems, somehow, my ruby version had been corrupted. When I ran rvm list version 2.5.1 was listed as 'broken'. I had to uninstall 2.5.1 fully (using sudo even in my case) to get to a clean slate.

Then, when attempting to reinstall, rvm was giving me all kinds of grief after a new gpg key which I initialy couldn't get to install properly (hint).

After a clean wipe of ruby 2.5.1, updating rvm to latest version and reinstalling, I got this error: Error running 'env GEM_HOME=/ruby-2.5.1@global GEM_PATH= /Users/user/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.5.1/bin/ruby -d /Users/user/.rvm/src/rubygems-3.0.8/setup.rb --no-document',.

It appears that an update to MacOSX deprecated a version of OpenSSL which causes some issues. I ended up following this thread and ran rvm gemset create global --default and then bundle install to get passed the Gem errors.

Honestly, rails is supposed to be easier than this. I wish docker was easier to reason about sometimes. These are the kinds of issues docker supposedly promises to fix eh?