Rails 4.2.3 ActiveRecord Error - ruby-on-rails

Question

All:
I am working on a project using the Ruby-on-Rails Framework. This project was initially based on Rails 4.0.9. I did a Brakeman Vulnerability Scan and I got n "Medium" level issue report that 4.0.9 is prone to DoS attack so I upgraded to 4.2.3.
But after the upgrade, I first got an error about "tzinfo" Data Source not found so I included the tzinfo-data gem with the platforms specification. That done, then my DB Queries using ActiveRecord Model starts failing whenever I do a method call on the results from the query.
CODE:
query = ['SELECT id, firstname, lastname, status, code FROM giftcard_orders WHERE phone = ? AND description LIKE ? ', phone, '%'+search]
#users = User.find_by_sql(query)
if #users.count > 0
#users.each do |user|
user[:code] = user[:code].do_decrypt
end
end
But immediately after the find_by_sql, I get some errors as below:
Completed 500 Internal Server Error in 685ms (ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)
*
NoMethodError (undefined method `type' for "int identity(10)":String):
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_methods/time_zone_conversion.rb:64:in `create_time_zone_conversion_attribute?'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_methods/time_zone_conversion.rb:53:in `inherited'
org/jruby/RubyProc.java:290:in `call'
org/jruby/RubyProc.java:271:in `call'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_decorators.rb:61:in `matching'
org/jruby/RubyArray.java:2468:in `select'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_decorators.rb:60:in `matching'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_decorators.rb:56:in `decorators_for'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_decorators.rb:47:in `apply'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_decorators.rb:29:in `add_user_provided_columns'
org/jruby/RubyArray.java:2399:in `collect'
org/jruby/RubyArray.java:2412:in `map'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attribute_decorators.rb:28:in `add_user_provided_columns'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attributes.rb:93:in `columns'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/attributes.rb:98:in `columns_hash'
C:0:in `columns_hash'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/query_methods.rb:1067:in `arel_columns'
org/jruby/RubyArray.java:2399:in `collect'
org/jruby/RubyArray.java:2412:in `map'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/query_methods.rb:1066:in `arel_columns'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/query_methods.rb:1059:in `build_select'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/query_methods.rb:878:in `build_arel'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/query_methods.rb:858:in `arel'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:210:in `perform_calculation'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:127:in `calculate'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation/calculations.rb:42:in `count'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation.rb:268:in `empty?'
activerecord (4.2.3) lib/active_record/relation.rb:278:in `any?'
*

Answer 1

The method ActiveRecord::Base.find_by_sql has been deprecated for this Rails version:
http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/Base/find_by_sql/class
You should use ActiveRecord::Querying.find_by_sql as an alternative.
http://apidock.com/rails/ActiveRecord/Querying/find_by_sql
UPDATE
I am not really sure about your error, but I recommend you to:
See what happens with a simple query example, like select id FROM giftcard_orders,
Use directly the module:
ActiveRecord::Querying.find_by_sql(['select id FROM giftcard_orders'])
If this doesn't work, try to check that the find_by_sql method is called. Be careful with this:
$> bundle open activerecord go to lib/activerecord/querying.rb and put something to show you that is really using it (maybe a rails logger or a pry)
https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/v4.2.3/activerecord/lib/active_record/querying.rb
If you suspect is an ActiveRecord bug, open an issue on the github Rails repository:
https://github.com/rails/rails/issues