Gem in metadata.rb and a load error on the first chef client run

What version of Chef 12.10? What’s the patch version or third version number?

It looks like you need at least 12.10.48 to get chef#4929 which adds a call to Gem.clear_paths. The stable 12.10 release was 12.10.24, which is probably what you’re running. So you likely need to upgrade to 12.11+.