Selenium failing with EOFile error with chromedriver on linux - ruby-on-rails

Question

I have an automated build machine running cucumber tests on an EC2 instance. I am using:
capybara (1.1.4)
selenium-webdriver (2.31.0)
chromedriver (25.0.1364.172-187217)
The tests are run headless using Xvfb X11 Server (1.7.7-29.10.amzn1) This setup has been working fine for months, but last week stopped working on these machines.
The error I am getting is:
(::) failed steps (::)
end of file reached (EOFError)
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/protocol.rb:135:in `read_nonblock'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/protocol.rb:135:in `rbuf_fill'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/protocol.rb:116:in `readuntil'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/protocol.rb:126:in `readline'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:2219:in `read_status_line'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:2208:in `read_new'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:1191:in `transport_request'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:1177:in `request'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:1170:in `block in request'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:627:in `start'
/mnt/bamboo-ebs/rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/lib/ruby/1.9.1/net/http.rb:1168:in `request'
./features/step_definitions/web_steps.rb:49:in `/^(?:|I )go to (.+)$/'
My best guess is the problem is due to upgrades to the selenium or chromedriver libraries in the past month as these are updated whenever a build instance is started.
I have checked the chromedriver logs but they do not appear to offer anything helpful:
0.000][INFO]: ChromeDriver 23.0.1240.0 /mnt/bamboo-ebs/bin/chromedriver/chromedriver
[0.259][FINE]: Initializing session with capabilities {
"browserName": "chrome",
"chrome.detach": true,
"chromeOptions": {
"detach": true
},
"cssSelectorsEnabled": true,
"javascriptEnabled": true,
"nativeEvents": false,
"platform": "ANY",
"rotatable": false,
"takesScreenshot": false,
"version": ""
}
[0.259][INFO]: Using named testing interface
[0.676][INFO]: Connected to Chrome successfully. Version: 25.0.1364.172
[0.693][FINE]: Command received (/session/132be881788b1e7a6c878f4c45935176)
[0.693][FINE]: Command finished (/session/132be881788b1e7a6c878f4c45935176) with response {
"sessionId": "132be881788b1e7a6c878f4c45935176",
"status": 0,
"value": {
"acceptSslCerts": false,
"applicationCacheEnabled": false,
"browserConnectionEnabled": false,
"browserName": "chrome",
"chrome.chromedriverVersion": "23.0.1240.0",
"chrome.nativeEvents": false,
"cssSelectorsEnabled": true,
"databaseEnabled": false,
"handlesAlerts": true,
"javascriptEnabled": true,
"locationContextEnabled": false,
"nativeEvents": true,
"platform": "linux",
"rotatable": false,
"takesScreenshot": true,
"version": "25.0.1364.172",
"webStorageEnabled": true
}
}
[0.695][FINE]: Command received (/session/132be881788b1e7a6c878f4c45935176/url) with params {
"url": "http://127.0.0.1:31337/"
}
[0.695][FINER]: Waiting for all views to stop loading...
[0.696][FINER]: Done waiting for all views to stop loading
[0.716][FINER]: Waiting for all views to stop loading...
All tests work successfully on my development machine (Mac OSX Mountain Lion) with chromedriver (26.0.1383.0). I have tried to downgrade my chromedriver to match the version on my build machine, but found I could not do this.
I have managed to get the tests to run using firefox, but this is not a long term solution for us.
Any help would be much appreciated.