Capybara::ElementNotFound: Unable to find field “user_email”

Question

I'm making a test for my signup page but I get this error that says it can't find the field. I used the input id in the fill_in method

<%= form_for @user, url: {action: "create"},html: {class: "horizontal-form", id: "signup-form"} do |f| %>
    <div class="form-group">
            <%= f.email_field :email, placeholder: "Email", class: "form-control" %>
            <%= f.text_field :username, placeholder: "Username", class: "form-control" %>
            <%= f.password_field :password, placeholder: "Password", class: "form-control" %>
            <%= f.password_field :password_confirmation, placeholder: "Password Confirmation", class: "form-control" %>
            <%= f.submit "Sign Up", class: "btn" %>
    </div>
<% end %>

The test

require 'rails_helper'

RSpec.describe UsersController, type: :controller do
    describe "GET Sign-Up" do
        it "returns http success" do
            visit '/signup'
            get :new
            expect(response).to have_http_status(:success)
        end
    end

    describe "Post User" do
        it "creates user" do
            user_params = FactoryGirl.attributes_for(:user)

            fill_in "user_email", with: "user_params[:email]"
            fill_in "user_username", with: user_params[:username]
            fill_in "user_password", with: user_params[:password_digest]
            fill_in "user_password_confirmation", with: user_params[:password_digest]
            click_button "Sign Up"

            expect {
                post :create, user: user_params
            }.to change(User, :count).by(1)
            expect(current_path).to redirect_to(root_path)
        end
    end
end

But i keep getting this error

 1) UsersController GET Sign-Up returns http success
 Failure/Error: fill_in "user_email", with: "user_params[:email]"
 Capybara::ElementNotFound:
   Unable to find field "user_email"

Neven Rakonić Neven Rakonić · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-06T21:49:33

What you're doing in the following lines is not really a controller spec.

 fill_in "user_email", with: "user_params[:email]"
 fill_in "user_username", with: user_params[:username]
 fill_in "user_password", with: user_params[:password_digest]
 fill_in "user_password_confirmation", with: user_params[:password_digest]
 click_button "Sign Up"

It's more of a feature spec, cause you're using capybara which simulates user behaviour in the browser. Currently you're mixing feature and controller specs, so when you remove those lines above your test should work.

For controller specs you send requests and params directly to the controller you're testing, since they're only meant to test the controller itself instead of interacting with the view.

You can read more about the difference in the rspec documentation:

https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/docs/controller-specs https://www.relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/docs/feature-specs/feature-spec

Capybara::ElementNotFound: Unable to find field “user_email”

2 Answers