Uninitialized Constant CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore NameError

If you've found this post by keyword search, let me ask you: Are you using the Rails ActiveRecordStore along with the Ruby-GetText-Package ruby gem? And are you seeing an ugly, mysterious error that looks something this when starting Rails or even executing script/console:

[me@myserver]# mongrel_rails start
** Starting Mongrel listening at 0.0.0.0:3000
** Starting Rails with development environment...
/var/www/apps/argent/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:478:in
  `const_missing': uninitialized constant CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore (NameError)
  from /var/www/apps/argent/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/session_management.rb:24:in `const_get'
  from /var/www/apps/argent/vendor/rails/actionpack/lib/action_controller/session_management.rb:24:in `session_store='
  from /var/www/apps/argent/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/initializer.rb:328:in `send'
  from /var/www/apps/argent/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/initializer.rb:328:in `initialize_framework_settings'
  from /var/www/apps/argent/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/initializer.rb:327:in `each'
  from /var/www/apps/argent/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/initializer.rb:327:in `initialize_framework_settings'
  from /var/www/apps/argent/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/initializer.rb:324:in `each'
  from /var/www/apps/argent/config/../vendor/rails/railties/lib/initializer.rb:324:in `initialize_framework_settings'
   ... 15 levels...
  from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.4/bin/../lib/mongrel/command.rb:212:in `run'
  from /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel-1.1.4/bin/mongrel_rails:281
  from /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails:19:in `load'
  from /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails:19

At the time of this post, I only saw three hits when Googling on "ruby", "rails", and "uninitialized constant CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore (NameError)". 2 links to Japanese blog posts, the 3rd to a Rails forum in Polish. None helped me resolve the above problem.

But I was Googling in English.

When I tried changing tactics and Googling in Japanese instead, I found this link, and a hint that led me to the following solution...

There is some kind of require collision happening when trying to use both the ActiveRecordStore for session management and the gettext package for localization/internationalization. The answer is to put the require 'gettext/rails' declaration well after the default Rails environment bootstrapping. In my environment.rb, I've got my requires declarations set up like so:

# Bootstrap the Rails environment, frameworks, and default configuration
require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'boot')       # default
...

Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
# Use the database for sessions instead of the cookie-based default,
# which shouldn't be used to store highly confidential information
# (create the session table with 'rake db:sessions:create')
config.action_controller.session_store = :active_record_store
...
end

# After the Rails::Initializer.run block, just before end of file
require 'jcode'
require 'gettext/rails'

In doing so, you can avoid any namespace collisions between the default Rails requires and that for gettext/rails. Hope this saves you some time and headaches.