100% unending CPU usage fetching SSL page without cert - ruby

Question

Using Mechanize 2.6.0 on Ruby 1.9.3 I'm trying to fetch a web page over HTTPS from Windows 7x64. When I attempt to get() the URL the CPU usage goes to 100% and the method never returns:
require 'mechanize'
uri = "https://my.com/wiki/api.php?action=query&titles=US4&prop=info&format=xml"
agent = Mechanize.new
u,p = %w[myusername mypassword]
agent.add_auth( uri, u, p )
agent.agent.http.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE
info = agent.get( uri )
When I interrupt it, I get these stack traces (three different runs):
>> info = agent.get( page_api )
IRB::Abort: abort then interrupt!
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:27:in `call'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:27:in `parse'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/agent.rb:716:in `response_authenticate'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/agent.rb:306:in `fetch'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize.rb:431:in `get'
from (irb):10
from C:/Ruby193/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
>> info = agent.get( page_api )
IRB::Abort: abort then interrupt!
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:29:in `call'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:29:in `new'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:29:in `parse'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/agent.rb:716:in `response_authenticate'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/agent.rb:306:in `fetch'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize.rb:431:in `get'
from (irb):11
from C:/Ruby193/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
>> info = agent.get( page_api )
IRB::Abort: abort then interrupt!
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:114:in `call'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:114:in `token'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/www_authenticate_parser.rb:31:in `parse'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/agent.rb:716:in `response_authenticate'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize/http/agent.rb:306:in `fetch'
from C:/Ruby193/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/mechanize-2.6.0/lib/mechanize.rb:431:in `get'
from (irb):12
from C:/Ruby193/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
How can I work around this problem and properly fetch an HTTPS URL via Ruby on Windows? (If there's a better solution than Mechanize for this—since I only need the source of the page to feed to Nokogiri anyhow—I'm open to not using Mechanize at all.)
Another datapoint: trying the same code on OS X produces the same result.
Here's the actual content of the page, using the alternative fetching method described in my workaround answer below:
p fetch_https_without_ssl_verification(uri, u, p)
#=> "\t\t <?xml version=\"1.0\"?><api><query><normalized><n from=\"Devtools/UI_Composer/DesignSpec/US7294\" to=\"Devtools/UI Composer/DesignSpec/US7294\" /></normalized><pages><page ns=\"0\" title=\"Devtools/UI Composer/DesignSpec/US7294\" missing=\"\" /></pages></query></api>"

Answer 1

If you simply need the contents of the URL (as I do) then using curl instead of Mechanize is far easier, and it works:
def fetch_https_without_ssl_verification( uri, user=nil, pass=nil )
`curl -s -k #{%Q{-u "#{user}#{":"<<pass if pass}"} if user} "#{uri}"`
end