I''ve gotten eager associations to work before, but for some reason this isn''t working out for me this time. I''ve been scratching my head but can''t quite figure out the nuances of what works and what doesn''t work. I''ve got 3 models: profile, widget_configuration and widgets profile.rb -- has_many :widget_configurations widget_configuration.rb - belongs_to :profile belongs_to :widgets widgets.rb - has_many :widget_configurations So in otherwords, widget_configuration is a sort of ''rich'' m-to-m association table containing foreign keys to both profiles and widgets. The table looks like this: widget_configurations ------------------------------ profile_id (FK) widget_id (FK) -------------------------- So now what I''m trying to do is this: (assuming @profile is an instance variable w/ a profile) @profile.widget_configurations.find :all, :include => [:widget] I end up getting this error: You have a nil object when you didn''t expect it! You might have expected an instance of Array. The error occured while evaluating nil.first This shows up in the log file: WidgetConfiguration Columns (0.000256) SHOW FIELDS FROM widget_configurations Widget Columns (0.000252) SHOW FIELDS FROM widgets NoMethodError (You have a nil object when you didn''t expect it! You might have expected an instance of Array. The error occured while evaluating nil.first): /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/active_record/associations.rb:924:in `generate_primary_key_table'' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/active_record/associations.rb:849:in `find_with_associations'' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.13.2/lib/active_record/base.rb:395:in `find'' /app/controllers/home_controller.rb:10:in `index'' /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-1.11.2/lib/action_controller/base.rb:853:in `send'' /app/controllers/home_controller.rb:10:in `index'' ... etc.. the rest traces back to the dispatch.cfgi... I''m about this close to just doing a find_by_sql and handling the association myself, but I''d rather do it using the built-in mechanisms. Any help?