Cucumber tests suddenly stops - ruby-on-rails

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

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 2

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 3

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.

Answer 4

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.