Comment 2 for bug 451809

Note that this occurs on brand new code, essentially creating a new CouchDatabase like this:
self.__database = CouchDatabase(self.__db_name, create=True)

I also got the same error trying it directly in iPython:

In [3]: import desktopcouch.records

In [4]: desktopcouch.records.server.CouchDatabase("foob")
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ServerError Traceback (most recent call last)

/home/rick/<ipython console> in <module>()

/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/desktopcouch/records/server.pyc in __init__(self, database, uri, record_factory, create, server_class, oauth_tokens)
     50 port = desktopcouch.find_port()
     51 uri = "http://localhost:%s" % port
     52 super(CouchDatabase, self).__init__(
     53 database, uri, record_factory=record_factory, create=create,
---> 54 server_class=server_class, oauth_tokens=oauth_tokens)

/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/desktopcouch/records/server_base.pyc in __init__(self, database, uri, record_factory, create, server_class, **server_class_extras)
    120 self.server_uri = uri
    121 self._server = server_class(self.server_uri, **server_class_extras)
--> 122 if database not in self._server:
    123 if create:
    124 self._server.create(database)

/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/couchdb/client.pyc in __contains__(self, name)
    122 """
    123 try:
--> 124 self.resource.head(validate_dbname(name))
    125 return True
    126 except ResourceNotFound:

/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/couchdb/client.pyc in head(self, path, headers, **params)
    979
    980 def head(self, path=None, headers=None, **params):
--> 981 return self._request('HEAD', path, headers=headers, **params)
    982
    983 def post(self, path=None, content=None, headers=None, **params):

/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/couchdb/client.pyc in _request(self, method, path, content, headers, **params)
   1033 raise PreconditionFailed(error)
   1034 else:
-> 1035 raise ServerError((status_code, error))
   1036
   1037 return resp, data