Solved. MySQL 5.1 was causing this for me. I reverted back to an earler version of MySQL 5 (5.0.45 http://downloads.mysql.com/archives.php
;v=5.0.45) and everything is now working fine. Also, when running the earlier version of MySQL, I didn't have to copy any MySQL DLLs into my ruby/bin directory as I did with 5.1. I also uninstalled and reinstalled the MySQL gem, but I can't say if that had any effect.
I should give all credit for this fix to Christopher Haupt. His post (http://www.buildingwebapps.com/articles
dows-vista) mentions issues with MySQL on Vista.
I tried many things to resolve this (different versions of Ruby, Rails, gems, etc and even an XP virtual machine), and this was the only thing that solved my problem. MySQL itself seemed to run fine, but there is definitely something funky with that version that is beyond my understanding.
I hope this helps others get their Rails installs on Vista with MySQL more stable.
-Ben Ridout
Last edited by one_too_many (2009-04-30 11:58:01)