Spreadsheet Connection section, won't create the spreadsheet - ruby-on-rails

Question

While working on Daniel Kehoe's Learn Ruby on Rails book, I got to the spreadsheet connection section. I followed the workaround for google drive and I get the message sent flash notice, but when I check Google Drive I am not seeing a created
Learn-Rails-Example
spreadsheet. This is my models/contact.rb file.
require 'google_drive_v0'
class Contact
include ActiveModel::Model
attr_accessor :name, :string
attr_accessor :email, :string
attr_accessor :content, :string
validates_presence_of :name
validates_presence_of :email
validates_presence_of :content
validates_format_of :email, :with => /\A[-a-z0-9_+\.]+\#([-a-z0-9]+\.)+[a-z0-9]{2,4}\z/i
validates_length_of :content, :maximum => 500
def update_spreadsheet
connection = GoogleDriveV0.login(Rails.application.secrets.email_provider_username, Rails.application.secrets.email_provider_password)
ss = connection.spreadsheet_by_title('Learn-Rails-Example')
if ss.nil?
ss = connection.create_spreadsheet('Learn-Rails-Example')
end
ws = ss.worksheets[0]
last_row = 1 + ws.num_rows
ws[last_row, 1] = Time.new
ws[last_row, 2] = self.name
ws[last_row, 3] = self.email
ws[last_row, 4] = self.content
ws.save
end
end
Here is the contacts_controller.rb to show that the Message from 'Contacts' should be sent to my email.
class ContactsController < ApplicationController
def new
#contact = Contact.new
end
def create
#contact = Contact.new(secure_params)
if #contact.valid?
#contact.update_spreadsheet
UserMailer.contact_email(#contact).deliver
flash[:notice] = "Message sent from #{#contact.name}."
redirect_to root_path
else
render :new
end
end
private
def secure_params
params.require(:contact).permit(:name, :email, :content)
end
end
When I load the server and then try to submit the contact form i get
Authentication failed for : Response code 403 for post https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin: Error=BadAuthentication
And then this in the terminal:
WARNING: GoogleDriveV0.login is deprecated and will be removed in the next version. Use GoogleDriveV0.login_with_oauth instead. Completed 500 Internal Server Error in 153ms
google_drive (1.0.0) lib/google_drive_v0/session.rb:109:in `rescue in login'
google_drive (1.0.0) lib/google_drive_v0/session.rb:102:in `login'
google_drive (1.0.0) lib/google_drive_v0/session.rb:43:in `login'
google_drive (1.0.0) lib/google_drive_v0.rb:19:in `login'
...learn-rails/app/models/contact.rb:15:in `update_spreadsheet'
...learn-rails/app/controllers/contacts_controller.rb:10:in `create'

Answer 1

I had the same error and whilst the issue for me was that I was using POW to serve up my dev site the steps I took to realise this might assist you.
As you did I hard coded the variables in the update_spreadsheet method and this worked - proving the method and google_drive gem were good.
I then pulled up rails console and did
puts Rails.application.secrets.email_provider_username
which got me my email address and proved Rails could see my environment variables.
Assuming you are on the Rails 4.2 version of the book and have added
gem 'web-console', '~> 2.0'
to your gem file when you try to post the form and get the error you should get a console prompt. Here I ran
puts Rails.application.secrets.email_provider_username
again but this time got nil as an answer which confused me at first.
This lead me to realise I was serving up the site with POW (http://pow.cx - a really cool way to serve up your dev sites) which uses its own .powenv file and so had no access to my variables. I confirmed this by running rails server and connecting via localhost:3000 and I could post without issue.
so adding variables to the .powenv (and removing the file from git by adding to .gitignore) then resolved the issue.
Hopefully some of the troubleshooting steps above may help you as it did me and you can complete the tutorial.