"Could not find a valid mapping for #<User ...>" only on second and successive tests

Question

I'm trying to write a request test that asserts that the proper links appear on the application layout depending in whether a user is logged in or out. FWIW, I'm using Devise for the authentication piece.

Here's my spec:

require 'spec_helper'
require 'devise/test_helpers'

describe "Layout Links" do
  context "the home page" do
    context "session controls" do
      context "for an authenticated user" do
        before do
          # I know these should all operate in isolation, but I
          # want to make sure the user is explicitly logged out
          visit destroy_user_session_path

          @user = Factory(:user, :password => "Asd123", :password_confirmation => "Asd123")
          @user.confirm!

          # I tried adding this per the Devise wiki, but no change
          @request.env["devise.mapping"] = Devise.mappings[:user]

          # Now log a new user in
          visit new_user_session_path
          fill_in "Email",    :with => @user.email
          fill_in "Password", :with => "Asd123"
          click_button "Sign in"
          get '/'
        end

        it "should not have a link to the sign in page" do
          response.should_not have_selector(
            '#session a',
            :href => new_user_session_path
          )
        end

        it "should not have a link to registration page" do
          response.should_not have_selector(
            '#session a',
            :href => new_user_registration_path
          )
        end

        it "should have a link to the edit profile page" do
          response.should have_selector(
            '#session a',
            :content => "My Profile",
            :href => edit_user_registration_path
          )
        end

        it "should have a link to sign out page" do
          response.should have_selector(
            '#session a',
            :content => "Logout",
            :href => destroy_user_session_path
          )
        end
      end # context "for an authenticated user"
    end # context "session controls"
  end
end

The first test passes, but the last three all fail with the error

Failure/Error: @user = Factory(:user, :password => "Asd123", :password_confirmation => "Asd123")
  RuntimeError:
    Could not find a valid mapping for #<User id: xxx, ...>

I've searched through the Devise wiki, Google group and search results for a cause, but all I find are unanswered questions or suggestions to set config.include Devise::TestHelpers, :type => :controller but that only applies to controller tests, not request test.

---

Update

I've done some more troubleshooting and I can't make heads or tails of what is ultimately triggering the problem. Have a look at the following code.

First, for some context here is the User factory declaration. It works fine in unit tests.

# spec/factories.rb
Factory.define :user do |f|
  f.email { Faker::Internet.email }
  f.email_confirmation { |f| f.email }
  f.password "AbcD3fG"
  f.password_confirmation "AbcD3fG"
  f.remember_me { (Random.new.rand(0..1) == 1) ? true : false }
end

Now, consider the following integration test

# spec/requests/user_links_spec.rb
require "spec_helper"

describe "User Links" do
  before(:each) do
    # This doesn't trigger the problem
    # @user = nil

    # This doesn't trigger the problem
    # @user = User.new

    # This doesn't trigger the problem
    # @user = User.create(
    #   :email => "[email protected]", 
    #   :email_confirmation => "[email protected]", 
    #   :password => "asdf1234", 
    #   :password_confirmation => "asdf1234"
    # )

    # This doesn't trigger the problem
    # @user = User.new
    # @user.email = Faker::Internet.email
    # @user.email_confirmation = @user.email
    # @user.password = "AbcD3fG"
    # @user.password_confirmation = "AbcD3fG"
    # @user.remember_me = (Random.new.rand(0..1) == 1) ? true : false
    # @user.save!

    # This triggers the problem!
    @user = Factory(:user)

    # This doesn't trigger the same problem, but it raises a ActiveRecord::AssociationTypeMismatch error instead. Still no idea why. It was working fine before in other request tests.
    # @user = Factory(:brand)
  end

  context "when using `@user = Factory(:user)` in the setup: " do
    2.times do |i|
      it "this should pass on the 1st iteration, but not the 2nd (iteration ##{i+1})" do
        # This doesn't trigger an error
        true.should_not eql(false)
      end

      it "this should pass on the 1st iteration, but trigger the error that causes all successive test cases to fail (iteration ##{i+1})" do
        # Every test case after this will be borken!
        get '/'
      end

      it "this will fail on all iterations (iteration ##{i+1})" do
        # This will now trigger an error
        true.should_not eql(false)
      end
    end
  end
end

If we comment out or replace the get '/' bit with anything else (or nothing at all), the tests all run fine.

So, I don't know if this is a factory_girl issue (I tend to doubt it since I can use User factories elsewhere w/o issue) or a Devise issue (I started getting these errors after setting up that gem in my application, but I also only had one other request test which did work fine but is now getting that AssociationTypeMismatch error; correlation ≠ causation...) or an RSpec issue or some other weird edge-case gem conflict.

Answer 1

Add this line to your routes.rb

# Devise routes
devise_for :users # Or the name of your custom model