Chef Solo now giving "TypeError: no implicit conversion of nil into String"

[sleenen]

I had Chef vault working with chef solo in vagrant, I updated my gems and now when running vagrant provision I'm getting:

no implicit conversion of nil into String

when trying to get item

key = ChefVault::Item.load("secrets", "certificate.key")

Seems like it can't load the data from the vault anymore.
I'm not sure where to look :S any help is appreciated.

This is the stacktrace:

Generated at 2016-11-21 10:27:45 +0000
TypeError: no implicit conversion of nil into String
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-vault-2.9.0/lib/chef-vault/item.rb:143:in `initialize'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-vault-2.9.0/lib/chef-vault/item.rb:143:in `open'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-vault-2.9.0/lib/chef-vault/item.rb:143:in `secret'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-vault-2.9.0/lib/chef-vault/item.rb:74:in `load_keys'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-vault-2.9.0/lib/chef-vault/item.rb:268:in `load'
/var/chef/cache/cookbooks/nginx/recipes/default.rb:52:in `from_file'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/mixin/from_file.rb:30:in `instance_eval'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/mixin/from_file.rb:30:in `from_file'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/cookbook_version.rb:233:in `load_recipe'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/run_context.rb:338:in `load_recipe'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/run_context/cookbook_compiler.rb:141:in `block in compile_recipes'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/run_context/cookbook_compiler.rb:138:in `each'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/run_context/cookbook_compiler.rb:138:in `compile_recipes'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/run_context/cookbook_compiler.rb:75:in `compile'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/run_context.rb:187:in `load'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/policy_builder/expand_node_object.rb:97:in `setup_run_context'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/client.rb:510:in `setup_run_context'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/client.rb:280:in `run'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application.rb:294:in `block in fork_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application.rb:282:in `fork'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application.rb:282:in `fork_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application.rb:247:in `block in run_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/local_mode.rb:44:in `with_server_connectivity'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application.rb:235:in `run_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application/client.rb:464:in `sleep_then_run_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application/client.rb:451:in `block in interval_run_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application/client.rb:450:in `loop'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application/client.rb:450:in `interval_run_chef_client'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application/client.rb:434:in `run_application'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application.rb:59:in `run'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/lib/chef/application/solo.rb:226:in `run'
/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-12.16.42/bin/chef-solo:25:in `<top (required)>'
/usr/bin/chef-solo:54:in `load'
/usr/bin/chef-solo:54:in `<main>'

[sleenen]

Checked line 143 or item.rb (/opt/chef/embedded/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0/gems/chef-vault-2.9.0/lib/chef-vault/item.rb)

private_key = OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new(File.open(@client_key_path).read())

I tried puts @client_key_path

Seems @client_key_path is empty/nil?

[sleenen]

I've tried hardcoding to point to /etc/chef/my.pem. When doing that, all seems to work as expected again.

[youhyunkim]

Agreed @client_key_path shouldn't be empty/nil.
But if you need a cleaner workaround for now, you can just pass the client_key_path as a param to ChefVault::Item.load.

so something like
key = ChefVault::Item.load("vault", "vault_item", client_key_path: '/path/to/client.pem')