[chef] Chef client suddenly can't find recipes/cookbooks (cheffish)?

[o haya < >]

Hi,

I had setup a CENTOS 6.5 machine last week (or maybe a couple of weeks ago) 
and was using it to test the chef-splunk cookbook.

Things were good, and I even have screenshots.

Today, I wanted to pickup where I left off, but nothing is working anymore on 
the machine (with Chef).

When I run chef-client to run a recipe that I KNOW is on the server, I get 
error saying it can't resolve.


 
 chef]# chef-client -o user
Starting Chef Client, version 12.4.0
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] WARN: Run List override has been provided.
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] WARN: Original Run List: []
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] WARN: Overridden Run List: [recipe[user]]
resolving cookbooks for run list: ["user"]

================================================================================
Error Resolving Cookbooks for Run List:
================================================================================

Missing Cookbooks:
------------------
The following cookbooks are required by the client but don't exist on the 
server                      :
* user


Expanded Run List:
------------------
* user


Running handlers:
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] ERROR: Running exception handlers
Running handlers complete
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] ERROR: Exception handlers complete
Chef Client failed. 0 resources updated in 1.313674771 seconds
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] ERROR: undefined method `cheffish' for 
nil:NilClass
[2015-07-07T18:00:49-04:00] FATAL: Chef::Exceptions::ChildConvergeError: Chef 
ru                      n process exited unsuccessfully (exit code 1)

 
 chef]#


I googled and found this one reference:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31149600/undefined-method-cheffish-for-nilnilclass-when-provisioning-chef-with-vagra

which I don't quite understand?

Is that saying that somehow the chef client on that machine got changed to 
12.4.0 and now it is broken?

Does chef-client automatically update itself (e.g., as I said it was working 
last week or so, but now is not)?

Also, being a newbie, I don't understand the solutions that are mentioned 
like "I switched to 12.3.0 and now it works" and "I added the line 
chef.version = "12.3.0" to the provision block ".  Can someone kindly explain 
how to do that?

I even stood up a new CENTOS box and it ended up with 12.4.0 client I guess, 
because it has the exact same problem.

Sorry for the panic :(!!

Thanks,
Jim