rspec Test Result Capybara::ElementNotFound

Question

I've been asked to help out on a Rails app. I'm going through some failing rpsec tests and getting them to pass. I've got one on which I'm banging my head against a wall. We are using Rails 3.2.13 and Ruby 2.0 Note: I'm totally a nube on rspec.

I have a form with an id of vet-as-faculty. The test is looking for this and not finding it. I get the error:

Capybara::ElementNotFound:
   Unable to find css "form#vet-as-faculty

I get a similar error on other form elements in the test also, but the test is failing on or at this point.

I know this "usually" means the markup on the form is not correct or something in the test is misspelled (I've found a few of those). But this one I just cannot get. I've Googled on this error and found a bit of stuff, but nothing that seems to help me on this one. I'm hoping you gurus out there will see something simple for me.

Form/view (in part):

 <%= form_for @profile, :url => { :action => :vet_as_faculty }, :html => { :id => "vet-as-faculty" } do |f| %>
  <fieldset class="row1"><legend>Vet Me As Faculty</legend>
    <div class="form-pair" id="faculty-url">
    <div class="form-item">
      <label>Faculty URL</label>
    </div>
  <fieldset class="row2">
    <div class="form-submit" id="save-faculty">
      <%= f.submit "Send for Review" %>
    </div>
  </fieldset>
<% end %>

View source shows this as:

<form accept-charset="UTF-8" action="/research/chr/casestudies/profile/vet_as_faculty" class="edit_user" id="vet-as-faculty" method="post"><div style="margin:0;padding:0;display:inline"><input name="utf8" type="hidden" value="&#x2713;" /><input name="_method" type="hidden" value="put" /><input name="authenticity_token" type="hidden" value="FZtjli8HaGD3koUvSFAYR2Gy+waL8KDWflMNUo4tXXw=" /></div>
  <fieldset class="row1"><legend>Vet Me As Faculty</legend>
    <div class="form-pair" id="faculty-url">
      <div class="form-item">
        <label>Faculty URL</label>
      </div>
      <div class="form-value">
        <input id="user_faculty_url" name="user[faculty_url]" size="30" type="text" />
      </div>
  </fieldset>

  <fieldset class="row2">
    <div class="form-submit" id="save-faculty">
      <input name="commit" type="submit" value="Send for Review" />
    </div>
  </fieldset>
...

So, I see the for id as 'id="vet-as-faculty"'. but, the test does not see this.

The Test Code:

context "within the faculty vetting block" do
    it "has the necessary form fields" do
      within "form#vet-as-faculty" do 
        expect(page).to have_css("input#user_faculty_url")
        expect(page).to have_css("input#save-faculty")
      end
    end
 end

The error output for this one test:

3) Edit Profile View within the faculty vetting block has the necessary form fields
   Failure/Error: within "form#vet-as-faculty" do
   Capybara::ElementNotFound:
     Unable to find css "form#vet-as-faculty"
   # ./spec/features/edit_profile_view_spec.rb:48:in `block (3 levels) in <top (required)>'

I've tried to add more drill down type css in the test

within "#page #content form#vet-as-faculty" do

The form is inside div#content and content is inside div#page. This does not help either.

Any thoughts? Thanks for reading this.

Are you sure you are on the page you think you are on? There is no visit method call in your test you shared with us. — DVG
Have you tried foregoing the within block? You can state your expectations within the it block (so that the spec scans the entire page) and see if that helps. Capybara feature specs can be pretty fickle. Good luck! — aceofbassgreg
Thanks for the replies. Maybe the code does is not seeing the view page. As noted I'm totally new to rspec. I see a block with 'background do'. In it there is a line: visit edit_profile_path(@user). I do not know if that is what you are referring to. I'll get with the programmer who coded this and ask him. Thanks — John Cowan
aceofbassgreg: Yes, I tried commenting out the within block. The same error shows for the faculty-url id and the submit button id. — John Cowan

DVG DVG · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-29T12:36:51

Best guess is that you haven't actually navigated to the page where your form is

before { visit new_my_model_path }

As a more general piece of advice. Avoid writing tests that just assert markup/css. Focus on the behavior you need this form to accomplish instead and your tests will be a lot more valuable.

rspec Test Result Capybara::ElementNotFound

1 Answers