Getting an uninitialized constant error with RSpec. Have no idea what's causing it

Question

I'm using RSpec for testing and when I left work Friday afternoon, my tests were passing. But when I went home and synced my repository, the tests failed on my laptop. Now back at work, the tests are failing still. Don't believe its my code since running rspec by itself returns an error and spork won't even start up. When I try to start Spork, I get the following error message:

Using RSpec
Loading Spork.prefork block...
uninitialized constant ActionView::Template::Handlers::ERB::ENCODING_FLAG (NameError)
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/rspec-core-2.2.1/lib/rspec/core/backward_compatibility.rb:20:in `const_missing'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:85:in `<class:ERB>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:70:in `<module:Handlers>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:28:in `<class:Template>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:27:in `<module:ActionView>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/handlers/erb.rb:6:in `<top (required)>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/handlers.rb:10:in `extended'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template.rb:99:in `extend'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template.rb:99:in `<class:Template>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template.rb:8:in `<module:ActionView>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template.rb:6:in `<top (required)>'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/template/resolver.rb:3:in `<top (required)>'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/actionpack-3.0.3/lib/action_view/testing/resolvers.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/rspec-rails-2.2.1/lib/rspec/rails/view_rendering.rb:1:in `<top (required)>'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/rspec-rails-2.2.1/lib/rspec/rails.rb:9:in `<top (required)>'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:33:in `require'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:33:in `rescue in require'
<internal:lib/rubygems/custom_require>:29:in `require'
/home/jeff/Projects/Rails/vahsfbhistory/spec/spec_helper.rb:10:in `block in <top (required)>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork.rb:23:in `prefork'
/home/jeff/Projects/Rails/vahsfbhistory/spec/spec_helper.rb:5:in `<top (required)>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/test_framework.rb:138:in `load'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/test_framework.rb:138:in `block (2 levels) in preload'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/app_framework.rb:64:in `preload'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/test_framework.rb:134:in `block in preload'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork.rb:67:in `exec_prefork'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/test_framework.rb:120:in `preload'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/run_strategy/forking.rb:25:in `preload'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/runner.rb:74:in `run'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/lib/spork/runner.rb:9:in `run'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/gems/spork-0.8.4/bin/spork:10:in `<top (required)>'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/bin/spork:19:in `load'
/home/jeff/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p0@rails3tutorial/bin/spork:19:in `<main>'

Anyone know what could be causing this?

Laure

did you ever find out why you were getting this error? I'm now experiencing this myself. All I did was require 'rspec/rails' – Amuck

Answer 1

I ran into this problem. In the spec_helper.rb try replacing:

require "rails"

with

require "rails/all"

Worked in my situation.

Convulsant

this did not fix my problem on my Rails 4.2.5 app – Escent

Answer 2

You need to initialize environment, add this line to spec_helper.rb:

require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)

Auricle

@Зелёный answered just in time :) – Auricle

this DID fix the symptom on my Rails 4.2.5 app – Escent

Answer 3

You may encounter this issue if you're trying to use rspec-rails in a non-rails project. In that case using require "rails/all" is not an option because it'd require ActiveRecord stuff leaving you with:

ActiveRecord::ConnectionNotEstablished: No connection pool with 'primary' found.

Instead you can fix this issue with:

require "action_controller/railtie"

Egghead

Thank you! This helped me with my non-rails project set up. – Hollenbeck

Answer 4

If it's not a Rails app and you don't want to include all of Rails, add this to your spec_helper.rb:

require 'action_view'

Furious

This does not work on a non-rails app. Fails with NameError: uninitialized constant ActionController::TestCase. See my answer instead. – Egghead