Cucumber tests suddenly stops

Question

I have feature like this:

Feature: Searching chats
In order to find chats
As an user
I want to find different chats by username or ad name

Background:
  Given System prepares for chats
  And There is a few machines with names:
    | machine_1 |
    | machine_2 |
    | machine_3 |
  And There is a few services with names:
    | service_1 |
    | service_2 |
    | service_3 |
  And I have chats with ads owners

Scenario: Searching chats
  When I am logged in as a "user"
  And I go to chats page   # <- stops here
  Then I should see search results when I fill form with:
    | input  | results |
    | ma     | machine_1, machine_2, machine_3 |
    | se     | service_1, service_2, service_3 |                                                                         

When I start cucumber feature (or scenario), it suddenly stops at step "And I go to chats page" without any error message. Result looks like:

[alex@MacBookPro ~/my_project | master]$ cucumber features/chat/search.feature
Using the default profile...
@javascript
Feature: Searching chats
  In order to find chats
  As an user
  I want to find different chats by username or ad name

  Background:                               # features/chat/search.feature:8
    Given System prepares for chats         # features/step_definitions/chats.steps.rb:11
    And There is a few machines with names: # features/step_definitions/machine.steps.rb:10
      | machine_1 |
      | machine_2 |
      | machine_3 |
    And There is a few services with names: # features/step_definitions/service.steps.rb:144
      | service_1 |
      | service_2 |
      | service_3 |
    And I have chats with ads owners        # features/step_definitions/chats.steps.rb:5

  Scenario: Searching chats                                 # features/chat/search.feature:20
    When I am logged in as a "user"                         # features/step_definitions/user.steps.rb:68
    And I go to chats page                                  # features/step_definitions/chats.steps.rb:17
[alex@MacBookPro~/my_project | master]$

That's my "falling" steps:

When /^I go to chats page$/ do
  visit root_path

  within('.global-menu') do
    click_on username(@current_user)
    click_on I18n.t('views.menu.profile.links.dashboard')
  end

  click_on I18n.t('views.menu.profile.links.chats')
end

Then(/^I should see search results when I fill form with:$/) do |table|
  table.hashes.each do |search_data|
    ### searching ###
    @page.query.set search_data['input']

    # for AJAX search
    sleep 1

    ### show results ###
    search_data['results'].split(', ').each do |res|
      page.should have_content res.mb_chars.upcase
    end

    within('#chats') do
      page.all('.chat').length.should == search_data['results'].split(', ').size
    end
  end
end

I'm using capybara-webkit with cucumber. That's my env.rb:

require 'rubygems'
require 'spork'
require 'capybara'
require 'capybara/rspec'
require 'selenium-webdriver'
require 'site_prism'
require 'capybara-screenshot/cucumber'
# require 'cucumber/rails'


# 1) Tag your scenario (or feature) with @allow-rescue
#
# 2) Set the value below to true. Beware that doing this globally is not
# recommended as it will mask a lot of errors for you!
#
# ActionController::Base.allow_rescue = false

#############################################################################

ENV['SKIP_RAILS_ADMIN_INITIALIZER'] = 'false'                                   # This fixes weird errors with cucumber + rails_admin (http://makandracards.com/makandra/9597-rake-spec-+-rails_admin-weirdly-failing-specs).

#############################################################################

Before do
  DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation

  DatabaseCleaner.clean
  FactoryGirl.create(:setting)
  ContactType.generate_contact_types
  ContactType.generate_ims
end

Spork.prefork do
  require 'cucumber/rails'
  require 'email_spec' # add this line if you use spork
  require 'email_spec/cucumber'
  Capybara.default_selector = :css
end

Spork.each_run do
  ActionController::Base.allow_rescue = false

  begin
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
  rescue NameError
    raise "You need to add database_cleaner to your Gemfile (in the :test group) if you wish to use it."
  end

  Capybara.register_driver :webkit do |app|
    Capybara::Webkit::Driver.new(app, :stderr => nil)
  end

  Capybara.javascript_driver = :webkit

  Cucumber::Rails::Database.javascript_strategy = :truncation
end

Problem appeard when I have updaded my project to rails4. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Use thin web server instead of webkit and put the following code in features/support/env.rb:

Capybara.server do |app, port|
 require 'rack/handler/thin'
 Rack::Handler::Thin.run(app, :Port => port)
end

Read more about this solution using thin server from the following link:

Solution of same problem using thin web server, and read this solution same solution by another one.

Answer 2

A lot of the developers I managed find Capybara-webkit to be really problematic and inconsistent.

poltergeist/PhantomJS has a lot of advantages over it. Generally it:

• is more deterministic, in that problem scenarios are more likely to fail consistently than to be flaky
• is less machine-dependent; our suite now behaves pretty much the same in all of our test environments
• gives better error messages
• fails when there are Javascript errors, even if the test would otherwise pass
• doesn’t hang, and
• is easier to install.

Here's a good post from Dave Schweisguth about his presentation at the the February Automated Testing SF meetup, where he discussed his company (Fandor)'s testing setup/environment, issues, and troubleshooting and a quick comparison. It might help you track down your problem.

Answer 3

Ok, I don't have an answer, but I have more evidence that leads to a workaround.

This applies to rspec, but I assume it should be the same for Cucumber as well:

rspec spec/ --formatter progress --out rspec.output.txt

It looks like the pointer to STDOUT is getting mashed somehow. By specifying an output file and tailing it, you should see the full output.

I tried all the different formatters and no matter what, if they output to STDOUT, the output gets lost somewhere along the way.

Answer 4

I've had a similar issue, for unknown reasons when using Selenium web driver. But when I've switched to Poltergeist (PhantomJS) it started to work.

Also, I noticed, that you are requiring selenium driver, but then, you are using the Webkit.

And after changing the driver, try running everything without a Spork running.