Test database wont use fixtures created inside feature tests - ruby-on-rails

Question

I added selenium webdriver to my test setup to start writing some tests based on javascript. I added
Capybara.register_driver :selenium do |app|
Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, browser: :chrome)
end
Capybara.javascript_driver = :selenium_chrome
Capybara.configure do |config|
config.default_max_wait_time = 5
config.default_driver = :selenium
end
to my rails helper which now look like this
rails_helper.rb
require "spec_helper"
ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= "test"
require File.expand_path("../config/environment", __dir__)
# Prevent database truncation if the environment is production
abort("The Rails environment is running in production mode!") if Rails.env.production?
require "rspec/rails"
require "capybara/rspec"
Dir[Rails.root.join("spec", "support", "**", "*.rb")].each { |f| require f }
begin
ActiveRecord::Migration.maintain_test_schema!
rescue ActiveRecord::PendingMigrationError => e
puts e.to_s.strip
exit 1
end
RSpec.configure do |config|
config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!
Capybara.register_driver :selenium do |app|
Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, browser: :chrome)
end
Capybara.javascript_driver = :selenium_chrome
Capybara.configure do |config|
config.default_max_wait_time = 5
config.default_driver = :selenium
end
# Filter lines from Rails gems in backtraces.
config.filter_rails_from_backtrace!
# arbitrary gems may also be filtered via:
# config.filter_gems_from_backtrace("gem name")
# Include Factory Bot syntax methods
config.include FactoryBot::Syntax::Methods
# Configure Database Cleaner
config.before(:suite) do
DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
end
config.around(:each) do |example|
DatabaseCleaner.cleaning do
example.run
end
end
end
After these changes, my previous feature tests broke because now they do not use the fixtures created within the tests.
i.e features/article_spec.rb
require "rails_helper"
RSpec.describe "articles", type: :feature do
before :each do
create(:article, published: false)
create(
:article,
name: "Published article",
body_text: "Lorem ipsum",
published_at: Time.now,
published: true
)
end
describe "article feature" do
it "shows only published articles" do
visit("/articles")
expect(page).to have_css(".article-container", count: 1)
end
end
end
The tests are not running headless so I can follow along and see that no articles are present despite the creation within article_spec.rb. I assume the driver executes the tests using another server and/or another database but I'm not sure. In which case don't know how to change that or how to seed that database. You guys have any clue?

Answer 1

You can't use an around hook for database cleaner with RSpec and Capybara because of the order the hooks get run in. If you're going to continue using database cleaner you need to be using closer to the recommended configuration - https://github.com/DatabaseCleaner/database_cleaner#rspec-with-capybara-example
That being said, since Rails 5.1 assuming you're using a normal configuration (testing with local app, normal DB config, up to date rspec-rails, etc) you don't need to use database cleaner at all, just set config.use_transactional_fixtures = true in your RSpec configuration, remove all references to database cleaner, and the DB connection should be safely shared between your tests and the app under test.