Why won't bundler install JSON gem?

Question

I get the following error when attempting to run cap production deploy.

DEBUG [dc362284]    Bundler::GemNotFound: Could not find json-1.8.1.gem for installation
DEBUG [dc362284]    An error occurred while installing json (1.8.1), and Bundler cannot continue.
DEBUG [dc362284]    Make sure that `gem install json -v '1.8.1'` succeeds before bundling.

It may be important to note that this deployment was working, than I upgraded to Ruby 2.1.0 to remove an encoding error. I upgraded locally which worked fine. I ran rvm install 2.1.0 and rvm use 2.1.0 then changed my .ruby-version file to reflect this Ruby upgrade.

The bundle install command works locally, but produces the same above error when I ssh onto the destination server and run this command.

If I run gem list I can see this in the list of gems.

...
jquery-rails (3.0.4)
json (1.8.1)
less (2.3.2)
...

If I try the recommended solution gem install json -v '1.8.1' Locally and on the destination server I get the following output:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
Successfully installed json-1.8.1
Parsing documentation for json-1.8.1
Done installing documentation for json after 0 seconds
1 gem installed

So it appears the gem is installed, right? Why is this happening? How can I solve this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Solution 1

So after a half day on this and almost immediately after posting my question I found the answer. Bundler 1.5.0 has a bug where it doesn't recognize default gems as referenced here

The solution was to update to bundler 1.5.1 using gem install bundler -v '= 1.5.1'

Solution 2

$ bundle update json
$ bundle install

Solution 3

Run this command then everything will be ok

sudo apt-get install libgmp-dev

Solution 4

if you are in MacOS Sierra and your ruby version is 2.4.0.The ruby version is not compatible with json 1.8.3.

You can try add this line in your Gemfile:

gem 'json', github: 'flori/json', branch: 'v1.8'

This works for me!

Solution 5

To solve this problem, simply run:

bundle update

It will update the version of your bundler. Then run:

bundle install

Your problem will get solve. Solution is well explained here.

View more solutions

Comments

[user2503775]

What bundle show json gives you?

[user2503775]

Add gem json, '1.8.1' to Gemfile

[Thomas]

I have gem json, '1.8.1' in my gemfile already unfortunately

[Thomas]

bundle show json give /Users/ME/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.1.0/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0/gems/js‌​on-1.8.1

[e9t]

I needed sudo apt-get install ruby-dev on my Ubuntu.

[Stefan Lyew]

gem 'json', '1.8.1' <--- need single quotes

[Jason Denney]

Had the same issue even after updating bundler, doing a gem install json -v '1.8.1' after updating fixed the error message for me.

[holyredbeard]

Get the following error with your solution: "Version '2.1.0' is ambiguous. Cannot select Ruby implementation/version, please be more specific. Cannot reinstall unknown package ''"

[Matthias]

You might not have ruby 2.1.0, or more than one version installed through rvm. Run rvm list, and you'll see what is your current version. Use the full string (e.g. ruby-2.0.0-p451) instead of the 2.1.0 mentioned above.

[Obie]

gem install json -v '1.8.1' followed by bundle package did the trick for me

[Catfish]

Saved me a few swear words. Thanks for this!

[Snowcrash]

Isn't bundler supposed to install these gems for you? I don't understand why you have to install the gems manually. bundler.io/rationale.html I'm using Bundler version 1.7.11

[Hai Nguyen]

yup, it's simple to solve a problem with json bundle. Thank you

[Pramod Shinde]

This did not worked for me, sudo apt-get install libgmp3-dev worked , found solution github.com/flori/json/issues/253

[Loubot]

Worked when upgrading from ruby 2.0.0 to 2.2.4.

[Deepak Kumar Padhy]

Worked for me too :) Thanks!

[Joffrey Baratheon]

No need to delete everything. "bundle update json" sufficed.

[Rcordoval]

@Imran You have to put this on a linux terminal. I guess you are running windows?

[fuzzygroup]

This worked fantastically for me on OSX, Ubuntu across multiple bad versions of the json gem. In one case I had to delete the lock file and rebuild from scratch: git rm Gemfile.lock bundle install

[alexventuraio]

Worked fine, first of all I delete the Gemfile.lock and then just run bundle install and that's it.

[Francis Malloch]

Just running a bundle update solved this issue for me... in other words using a newer JSON gem build.

[Simon Liu]

Successfully installed json 1.8.6 (was 1.8.3)

[Echelon]

Thank you, that saved me a lot of frustration!

[Catfish]

I'm using bundler version 1.14.6 and also getting this error

[Windmill]

This did it for me on Ruby 2.4.0!

[Aleksey Deryagin]

Works for rbenv ruby 2.4.1 too (debian / ubuntu)

[etagwerker]

Using gem 'json', '1.8.6' worked for me. You might want to try that.

[twknab]

+1 Really helpful and got me unstuck. After bundle update, the install worked great. Thank you for the clean solution.

[Robert_T_Taylor]

This worked for me as well. Ruby 2.4.0 High Sierra. Thank you!

[eebbesen]

bundle update will update all your gems. gem update bundler will update bundler.

[fatihturan]

Worked for me too under Ruby version 2.4.2p198. Thanks.

[Scott Lawrence]

I upvoted this answer because it worked for me while the accepted answer did not. Like @Robert_T_Taylor, I ran this on macOS High Sierra.

[Unkas]

amazing - you saved my day!

[Pramod Shinde]

On MAC bundle update json worked it updated to 1.8.6 from 1.8.3

[Paul Verschoor]

Although I got a warning "Warning: coreutils 8.32 is already installed and up-to-date", this did the trick.