I was setting up the AAB dev environment on my macbook pro when I realized that I was only running Rails 2.0.2 but AAB wanted 2.1.0.  Ehh...  no big deal I thought.  I opened up Terminal and typed...

$ sudo gem update rails

All the usual output scrolled by, indicating that everything went as expected.  Once it was done I tried to check the rails version and that's when I realized that there was a problem

$ rails -v
/Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:377:in `report_activate_error':
RubyGem version error: activesupport(2.0.2 not = 2.1.0) (Gem::LoadError)
  from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:309:in `activate'
  from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:335:in `activate'
  from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:334:in `each'
  from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:334:in `activate'
  from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:76:in
`active_gem_with_options'
  from /Library/Ruby/Site/1.8/rubygems.rb:50:in `gem'
  from /Library/Ruby/bin/rails:15

So then I ran 'gem list' and saw what was up.

...
actionmailer (2.0.2, 1.3.6, 1.3.3, 1.2.5)
actionpack (2.0.2, 1.13.6, 1.13.3)
actionwebservice (1.2.6, 1.2.3, 1.1.6)
activemerchant (1.1.0)
activerecord (2.0.2, 1.15.6, 1.15.3)
activeresource (2.0.2)
activesupport (2.0.2, 1.4.4, 1.4.2)
...

When I did the rails update, none of the rails dependencies were updated.  I tried the update again, thinking that maybe something had just choked in the process, but it was no luck.  A quick Google search yielded the solution of using update with the --source option and http://gems.rubyonrails.org as the URL.

$ sudo gem update --source http://gems.rubyonrails.org
Updating installed gems
Updating metadata for 13 gems from http://gems.rubyonrails.org/
.............
complete
Updating actionmailer
Updating metadata for 13 gems from http://gems.rubyonrails.org/
.............
complete
Successfully installed activesupport-2.1.0
Successfully installed actionpack-2.1.0
Successfully installed actionmailer-2.1.0
Updating activerecord
Successfully installed activesupport-2.1.0
Successfully installed actionpack-2.1.0
Successfully installed actionmailer-2.1.0
Successfully installed activerecord-2.1.0
Updating activeresource
Successfully installed activesupport-2.1.0
Successfully installed actionpack-2.1.0
Successfully installed actionmailer-2.1.0
Successfully installed activerecord-2.1.0
Successfully installed activeresource-2.1.0
Gems updated: activesupport, actionpack, actionmailer, activesupport, actionpack, actionmailer, activerecord, activesupport, actionpack, actionmailer, activerecord, activeresource

That did it! Now rails and all its dependencies are at 2.1.0.

So I mentioned earlier that I was using Capistrano 2.0.  Well, in actuality, I was using version 2.3.0.  Why's this important?  Well, I'll tell ya....

On my initial deploy:

cap deploy:cold

...everything went fine.  Capistrano did a clone of my Github repo, ran all of my migrations, and started up the mongrels without a hitch.  It was on my subsequent deploy that I had a problem.

macbook:blog brent$ cap deploy
  * executing `deploy'
  * executing `deploy:update'
 ** transaction: start
  * executing `deploy:update_code'
    updating the cached checkout on all servers
ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly
*** [deploy:update_code] rolling back
  * executing "rm -rf /home/brent/public_html/acts-as-blogr.com/releases/20080604051355; true"
    servers: ["acts-as-blogr.com"]
    [acts-as-blogr.com] executing command
    command finished
/Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/deploy/scm/git.rb:217:in `query_revision': Unable to resolve revision for master (RuntimeError)
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/deploy/scm/base.rb:35:in `send'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/deploy/scm/base.rb:35:in `method_missing'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/deploy/scm/base.rb:63:in `local'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/deploy/scm/base.rb:35:in `method_missing'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/deploy.rb:37:in `load'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/configuration/variables.rb:87:in `call'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/configuration/variables.rb:87:in `fetch'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/configuration/variables.rb:110:in `protect'
     ... 35 levels...
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/lib/capistrano/cli/execute.rb:14:in `execute'
    from /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-2.3.0/bin/cap:4
    from /usr/bin/cap:19:in `load'
    from /usr/bin/cap:19

I tried again and got the same results.  After a quick google or two, I found this Lighthouse ticket for Capistrano. Evidently there's an issue with cap version 2.3.0 in which it calls 'fetch --tags' to update your code, which returns only tag commits instead of all commits.  This is a problem.

Fortunately, the solution is a simple as either downgrading to version 2.2.0, or upgrading to the latest build.  I opted for the safe route and installed 2.2.0.  Now everything is right as rain.