Server failure: BUG gc_sweep(): unknown data type 0x0

Question

My server keeps crashing. It is especially bad in localized parts of my app where the rest is fine. On one major page it is now happening every time. I've spent over an hour cutting out parts of code, restarting the server and seeing where it fails (i.e. whenever any segment of content is inserted), but my code doesn't seem to be reasonably likely to be causing these crashes.

The error message reads something like this:

c:\rubyjobs>ruby script/server  
=> Booting Mongrel  
=> Rails 2.3.5 application starting on http://0.0.0.0:3000  
=> Call with -d to detach  
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server  
C:/Rubystack/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.5/lib/
active_record/autosave_association.rb:183: [BUG] gc_sweep(): unknown data type 0
x0(0x59d9030)  
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-01-10 patchlevel 249) [i386-mingw32]

This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

I'm not experienced with Rails and I have a feeling this issue is advanced and/or embedded. What's going on here?

This is a critical issue for the app so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, sometimes Ruby and Rails are not the most stable products out there. I remember 249 and/or 248 having lot's of problems crashing on MacOSX but working fine on Linux. I'm not sure what's the state on Windows, but if I were you I'd upgrade to the latest Ruby (1.8.7-p302 I believe) and the latests Rails (2.3.9).