jasmine: Async callback was not invoked within timeout specified by jasmine.DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_INTERVAL

Question

I have an angular service called requestNotificationChannel:

app.factory("requestNotificationChannel", function($rootScope) {

    var _DELETE_MESSAGE_ = "_DELETE_MESSAGE_";

    function deleteMessage(id, index) {
        $rootScope.$broadcast(_DELETE_MESSAGE_, { id: id, index: index });
    };

    return {
       deleteMessage: deleteMessage
    };

});

I am trying to unit test this service using jasmine:

"use strict";

describe("Request Notification Channel", function() {
    var requestNotificationChannel, rootScope, scope;

    beforeEach(function(_requestNotificationChannel_) {
        module("messageAppModule");

        inject(function($injector, _requestNotificationChannel_) {
            rootScope = $injector.get("$rootScope");
            scope = rootScope.$new();
            requestNotificationChannel = _requestNotificationChannel_;
        })

        spyOn(rootScope, '$broadcast');
    });


    it("should broadcast delete message notification", function(done) {

        requestNotificationChannel.deleteMessage(1, 4);
        expect(rootScope.$broadcast).toHaveBeenCalledWith("_DELETE_MESSAGE_", { id: 1, index: 4 });
        done();       
    });
});

I read about the Asynchronous Support in Jasmine, but as I am rather new to unit testing with javascript couldn't make it work.

I am receiving an error :

Async callback was not invoked within timeout specified by jasmine.DEFAULT_TIMEOUT_INTERVAL

and my test is taking too long to execute (about 5s).

Can somebody help me providing working example of my code with some explanation?

Answer 1

Having an argument in your it function (done in the code below) will cause Jasmine to attempt an async call.

//this block signature will trigger async behavior.
it("should work", function(done){
  //...
});

//this block signature will run synchronously
it("should work", function(){
  //...
});

It doesn't make a difference what the done argument is named, its existence is all that matters. I ran into this issue from too much copy/pasta.

The Jasmine Asynchronous Support docs note that argument (named done above) is a callback that can be called to let Jasmine know when an asynchronous function is complete. If you never call it, Jasmine will never know your test is done and will eventually timeout.