Cannot upgrade past CocoaPods 0.39.0 - ruby

Question

I am trying to upgrade to CocoaPods 1.2.1 but cannot uninstall CocoaPods 0.39.0.
I have reviewed numerous posts about this issue. Evidently 0.39.0 caused a lot of problems. I do not have enough reputation points to attach all the links I have reviewed but there are several StackOverFlow questions and GitHub Issues on the topic as v.0.39.0 evidently had some problems. Here are two of the many posts I reviewed:
STACKOVERFLOW QUESTIONS:
Cocoa Pods need to completely re-install
COCOAPODS BLOG POST ABOUT SHARDING and v.0.39.0:
http://blog.cocoapods.org/Sharding/
Here is my 'gem env' output:
RubyGems Environment:
- RUBYGEMS VERSION: 2.6.12
- RUBY VERSION: 2.3.1 (2016-04-26 patchlevel 112) [x86_64-darwin15]
- INSTALLATION DIRECTORY:
/Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0
- USER INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /Users/johndoe/.gem/ruby/2.3.0
- RUBY EXECUTABLE: /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin/ruby
- EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin
- SPEC CACHE DIRECTORY: /Users/johndoe/.gem/specs
- SYSTEM CONFIGURATION DIRECTORY:
/Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/etc
- RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
- ruby
- x86_64-darwin-15
- GEM PATHS:
- /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/lib/ruby/gems/2.3.0
- /Users/johndoe/.gem/ruby/2.3.0
- GEM CONFIGURATION:
- :update_sources => true
- :verbose => true
- :backtrace => false
- :bulk_threshold => 1000
- REMOTE SOURCES:
- https://rubygems.org/
- SHELL PATH:
- /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin
- /usr/local/Cellar/rbenv/1.1.1/libexec
- /usr/local/bin
- /usr/local/sbin
- /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/shims
- /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/shims
- /usr/local/bin
- /usr/bin
- /bin
- /usr/sbin
- /sbin
- /Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/latest/bin
- /Users/johndoe/.rbenv/versions/2.3.1/bin
And here is my 'gem list --local | grep cocoapods' output:
cocoapods (1.2.1)
cocoapods-core (1.2.1, 1.2.0, 0.39.0)
cocoapods-deintegrate (1.0.1)
cocoapods-downloader (1.1.3, 0.9.3)
cocoapods-plugins (1.0.0, 0.4.2)
cocoapods-search (1.0.0, 0.1.0)
cocoapods-stats (1.0.0, 0.6.2)
cocoapods-trunk (1.2.0, 0.6.4)
cocoapods-try (1.1.0, 0.5.1)
I have tried the following solutions:
1) "sudo gem uninstall cocoapods" then "sudo gem install cocoapods" and closed and reopened the terminal after each step
2) I modified my .bash_profile to make sure my echo $PATH includes the - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: from my gem env
3) Tried "gem pristine --all"
4) Made sure my home brew was up to date
5) Reinstalled rbenv
6) Tried various combinations of:
$ sudo rm -fr ~/Library/Caches/CocoaPods/
$ sudo rm -fr ~/.cocoapods/repos/master/
$ sudo rm -fr Pods/
and then uninstalled and reinstalled cocoapods…
7) Manually applied “sudo gem uninstall” to each element in the output of my “gem list --local | grep cocoapods” and then …
rm -rf ~/.cocoapods/repos/master
sudo gem install cocoapods
8) Tried
$ sudo gem update cocoapods
9) I tried:
sudo gem install cocoapods:1.2.1
but when I try
pod _1.2.1_ version
or
pod —version
it says 0.39.0
10) The output of “which pod” is:
/usr/local/bin/pod
11) I cannot recall if the first time I tried “sudo gem uninstall cocoapods” it gave me the option of specifically uninstalling 0.39.0. I chose “All Versions” nevertheless
12) I tried “sudo chown -R "$(whoami)" /usr/local/Cellar/rbenv" to make sure it wasn’t a permissions issue
13) I am using Mac OS Sierra 10.12.5
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! Help!?!

Answer 1

The solution to my problem was:
sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods
This was the only way I could get rid of 0.39.0 and install the latest version of CocoaPods...
I found this solution and an explanation for why this was a problem at the following link:
https://github.com/CocoaPods/CocoaPods/issues/3736
Hooray!