Error when trying to run rspec: `require': cannot load such file -- rails_helper (LoadError)

Question

I am trying to run rspec for Ruby on Rails. I am running Rails 4.1.1. I have installed the gem, have established a spec folder with some tests. I have created a directory through $ rails g rspec:install

I tried to create a testing database through $ rake db:test:prepare but it throws this error message:

WARNING: db:test:prepare is deprecated. The Rails test helper now maintains your test 
schema automatically, see the release notes for details.

So I ended up looking at this stack overflow post, and of the two options, the one that worked was:

rake db:schema:load RAILS_ENV=test 

So, now I need to run rspec.

When I run $ rspec spec from the command line I get this error:

/Users/myname/.rbenv/versions/2.1.1/lib/ruby/2.1.0/rubygems/core_ext/
kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- rails_helper (LoadError)

How do I resolve this so that I can start running tests?

Solution 1

There is some problem with rspec V3. But in your case you are using V2.

change

require 'rails_helper'

to

require 'spec_helper'

Other description find here https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/problem-with-rspec

For V3 :

If someone using rspec V3 then similar error occurs when generator not run. So before trying anything run generator.

rails generate rspec:install

If you are getting a huge list of warning on your console. Then you need to remove --warnings from .rspec file.

Solution 2

I actually just had this error on rails 4 with rspec 3, but in my case I forgot to run the generator:

rails generate rspec:install

Also I had to remove warnings from .rspec, as stated by one of rpsec developers

Solution 3

For me, the problem was due to a different "rspec-support" version loaded and activated. I solved by prepending a "bundle exec":

bundle exec rspec

Solution 4

For newer versions (3.5), if you need to run the generator, rails generate rspec:install doesn't work for me. I used:

rspec --init

Creates .rspec and spec/spec_helper.rb.

EDIT: Just in case, I found out that I installed rspec gem for ruby, not the one for Rails, so rspec:install wasn't available. Should use https://github.com/rspec/rspec-rails.

Solution 5

Sometimes you need to run rspec command from Project's parent directory

View more solutions

Comments

[Jason Swett]

Surprisingly, this is what worked for me. I figured this wouldn't apply since I've already run the generator. This Q/A also helped me: stackoverflow.com/questions/17507416/…

[user9869932]

getting .../2.4.0/gems/rspec-core-3.7.1/lib/rspec/core/configuration‌​.rb:1455:in require': cannot load such file -- rails_helper (LoadError)` in Rails 5

[pinzonjulian]

This is a great answer too. If you've ran your test suite without problems before and this error comes up, try this instead of modifying your testing configuration. For rails > 4.0 use: rails db:test:prepare instead of rake. Both will work but using the rails keyword is the preferred way now.

[Fazal Karim]

this worked for me, rails 5