Capybara::ElementNotFound, but it is there

Question

I'm getting the following error:

Capybara::ElementNotFound: Unable to find field "username"
./spec/controllers/sessions_controller_spec.rb:10:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

spec:

require 'spec_helper'

describe SessionsController do
  before :each do
    @user = FactoryGirl.create(:user)
  end
  context 'creating a new session' do
    it 'can set the current_user variable to the logged user' do
      visit '/login'
      fill_in 'username', with: 'gabrielhilal' #I have tried `Username` as well
      fill_in 'password', with: 'secret'
      click_button 'Login'
      current_user.should == @user
      current_user.username.should == 'gabrielhilal'
    end
  end
  context 'destroying existing session' do
    xit 'can destroy the current_user' do
    end
  end
end

But I have the field username in my form:

<form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/sessions" method="post"><div style="margin:0;padding:0;display:inline"><input name="utf8" type="hidden" value="&#x2713;" / <input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="x7ORLDIvq1BXr8SOkd/Zla9Pl5R5tBXAtyflCpTGCtY=" /></div>
  <div class="field">
    <label for="username">Username</label>
    <input id="username" name="username" type="text" />
  </div>
  <div class="field">
    <label for="password">Password</label>
    <input id="password" name="password" type="password" />
  </div>
  <div class="actions">
    <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Login" />
  </div>
</form>

I did a similar test with cucumber and it is passing, which confirms that the field username is there: When to switch from cucumber to rspec in the BDD cycle for a login procedure

Any idea?

EDIT - I have added the save_and_open_page, which gives me a blank page. The puts "#{page.html.inspect}" also returns empity.

""

Capybara::ElementNotFound: Unable to find field "username"
./spec/controllers/sessions_controller_spec.rb:12:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

Solution 1

I know you've already answered your own question (kind of), but I feel it's still warranted to let you know that the example you've provided is a mixture of a controller and a request spec...

To quote verbatim from RSpec - Controller Specs: Note: To encourage more isolated testing, views are not rendered by default in controller specs.

The main difference (in the way RSpec interprets what kind of spec it is) is the line: describe SessionsController do.

To align it with RSpec and Testing best practices:

1. Move the spec to spec/requests
2. Change the describe to describe "SessionsController" do
3. Remove render_views

your spec should run just fine...

Check out RSpec - Request Specs for what I mean. I would also check out betterspecs.org for ways you can improve on testing.

Solution 2

You can debug it with terminal like:

it {puts page.body}

And see if there is 'username' input. But I think that problem on the first step visit '/login'

Comments

[kdweber89]

I found this to be incredibly useful. It tells you exactly which element is which and makes things incredibly easy to find. Thank you for sharing (even if it was years ago!)

[murb]

I don't see how this has a relation to the question, please try to elaborate on why this works

[Vivek]

Hi @Toby Zhen , Welcome to SO ! Please add more details and see stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-answer