no such file to load — log_worker

I am a newbie to the Ruby and the Ruby on Rails world and recently started working on my first Ruby on Rails project. This project was started by my manager and a couple co-workers a couple months ago and now I have got an opportunity to learn RoR while contributing to this project.

The first step: Setting up my Ubuntu box with all the required software, and gems, and what not…

Well we installed all the necessary items (Ruby 1.8.6, Rails 2.0.2 etc) on my box and started the backgroundrb, got a few errors, read a few blogs, corrected those errors and this cycle continued for about two days. Finally when everything seemed ok, as suspected, got another error, the error text as follows:

/usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require': no such file to load -- log_worker (LoadError)
from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:35:in `load_worker'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:26:in `initialize'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:47:in `new'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:47
from /usr/bin/packet_worker_runner:19:in `load'
from /usr/bin/packet_worker_runner:19

/home/mjain/work/code/leadserver/trunk/nqc-engine/lib/workers/cache_refresh_worker.rb:9: uninitialized constant BackgrounDRb (NameError)
from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require'
from /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:31:in `load_worker'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:26:in `initialize'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:47:in `new'
from /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/packet-0.1.10/bin/packet_worker_runner:47
from /usr/bin/packet_worker_runner:19:in `load'
from /usr/bin/packet_worker_runner:19

What the what?? everything works perfectly fine on others’ machines why it wont work on mine???

so I googled it and sure enough not enough info about what this error meant and how to correct it. Late on the second day my seniors and I tried everything (almost) possible to try to get rid of this error. Nothing seemed to work and we finally went home…Next day I found a note on my desk:

uninstall Packet 0.1.10 and install Packet 0.1.5

and it worked…thanks to Aaron Hawkins who compared his gem versions with mine and figured it out.

Itunes (bonjour) + VPN = MESS + Frustration + Loss of Prodctivity

Yes I am pissed and why shouldn’t I be…I bought a used IPOD a couple weeks ago and HAD to download iTunes to control it. I installed iTunes and set up my ipod and things worked without any major issues (other than having to wipe out the ipod and install an older firmware on it, in order to get it to overwrite its settings).

The same week I tried to login to my company’s network, from home, through VPN and it wouldn’t work. I would login, the VPN client software will start, say it’s connected but nothing would work. Then this last Saturday I called the tech support and after about an hour and half worth of trying this and that and restarting my windows box umpteen times, the tech support guy asked me if I had downloaded iTunes recently.

Surprised I acted at this, seemingly, unrelated question and asked the guy what’d that have to do with it. And his response pissed me off, not at him but at iTunes, he said he read a note in his system that “Bonjour”, a software that gets installed with iTunes, conflicts with some VPN software and hence my VPN was not working.

I uninstalled “bonjour” and the VPN worked perfectly fine. So if you are facing issues with your VPN client and have iTunes installed, try removing or disabling the bonjour service and it might just do the trick for you. To read more about “bonjour” and see if you really need it or you don’t, try this link.