Why do RSpec feature specs using Capybara, Poltergeist and Javascript fail inconsistently?

Question

Hi fellow software developers,

I have a Rails app with a usual testsuite set up (RSpec, Capybara, Poltergeist, jQuery, Rails). I use a little Javascript(jQuery) for remote requests. Basically it works and I don't understand my problem yet. So I may update the question with further knowledge.

Maybe you could give me some hints what to investigate before I post lots of irrelevant code and config.

The inconsistent and unexpected behaviour is in a feature spec that tests via Poltergeist in Capybara that the User interaction (clicking forms and links) hides and shows HTML-elements via AJAX with jQuery.

It seemed that it even works correctly if I test manually. Setting Capybara default time to wait changed only the time I had to wait until the spec run =). I found no other relevant configuration or usage yet.

So any help/idea is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

My spec_helper:

require 'simplecov'
require 'rubygems'

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'email_spec'
require 'rspec/autorun'
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'capybara/rspec'
require 'capybara/poltergeist'
require 'capybara/rails'

Capybara.javascript_driver = :poltergeist

Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include(EmailSpec::Helpers)
  config.include(EmailSpec::Matchers)
  config.include Capybara::DSL
  #config.include Capybara::RSpecMatchers
  config.mock_with :rspec

  config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"

  # If you're not using ActiveRecord, or you'd prefer not to run each of your
  # examples within a transaction, remove the following line or assign false
  # instead of true.
  # set to false with Capybara + Database Cleaner
  # set to true with ActiveRecord::Base patch from Jose Valim and without Database Cleaner
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = false
  config.infer_base_class_for_anonymous_controllers = true
  config.order = "random"
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods

  config.after(:each) do
    # some model deletion
    model.delete_all
  end

  config.include FeatureHelpers
end

class ActiveRecord::Base
  mattr_accessor :shared_connection
  @@shared_connection = nil

  def self.connection
    @shared_connection || retrieve_connection
  end
end

# # Forces all threads to share the same connection. This works on Capybara
# # because it starts the web server in a thread
ActiveRecord::Base.shared_connection = ActiveRecord::Base.connection

FactoryGirl.reload

Answer 1

This is a fresh setup of capybara-poltergeist for a rails app, could you check difference between this and your versions? (I'm too lazy ^_^ )

Gemfile

group :development, :test do
  gem 'rspec-rails'
end

group :test do
  gem 'capybara'
  gem 'database_cleaner'
  gem 'poltergeist'
  gem 'phantomjs', require: 'phantomjs/poltergeist'
end

spec/spec_helper.rb

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'capybara/rspec'
require 'capybara/rails'
require 'capybara/poltergeist'

Capybara.javascript_driver = :poltergeist

Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each { |f| require f }

ActiveRecord::Migration.check_pending! if defined?(ActiveRecord::Migration)

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods
  config.order = "random"
  config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = false
  config.infer_base_class_for_anonymous_controllers = false
end

spec/support/database_cleaner.rb

require "database_cleaner"

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.before(:suite) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
  end

  config.before(:each, :js => true) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.start
  end

  config.after(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean
  end
end

spec/features/posts_spec.rb

require "spec_helper"

describe "Posts pages" do
  let!(:post) { create :post } # Factory girl

  it "has post", js: true do
    visit posts_path
    expect(page).to have_content post.title
  end
end