rails form skips validation and doesn't save - ruby-on-rails

Question

My rails form skips validation and doesn't save. Any ideas on why this is happening?
What ends up happening is that the form submits and it goes to the create action, but it skips the validation completely set up in contact.rb and this line in the contact controller's #contact.save doesn't save and it goes to the else.
This is what gets printed in the terminal server window after the contact form gets submitted with dummy data:
logged in #<Contact:0xb60b3978>
Started POST "/contacts" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-08-11 17:04:46 -0400
Processing by ContactsController#create as HTML
Parameters: {"utf8"=>"✓", "authenticity_token"=>"zbEGKGXz1t2Os6VjVOMzcfeHru9sBfoBaF6tgr16qPo=", "contact"=>{"name"=>"", "email"=>"", "subject"=>"", "body"=>""}, "category"=>"bug", "commit"=>"Contact Us"}
User Load (0.1ms) SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = ? LIMIT 1 [["id", 3]]
CACHE (0.0ms) SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = ? LIMIT 1 [["id", 3]]
(0.1ms) begin transaction
(0.1ms) rollback transaction
Redirected to http://localhost:3000/contact
Completed 302 Found in 9ms (ActiveRecord: 0.3ms)
Started GET "/contact" for 127.0.0.1 at 2013-08-11 17:04:46 -0400
Processing by ContactsController#new as HTML
Rendered common/_form_errors.html.erb (0.0ms)
Rendered contacts/_contact_form.html.erb (2.3ms)
Rendered contacts/new.html.erb within layouts/application (2.9ms)
User Load (0.2ms) SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = ? LIMIT 1 [["id", 3]]
CACHE (0.0ms) SELECT "users".* FROM "users" WHERE "users"."id" = ? LIMIT 1 [["id", 3]]
Rendered common/_search_form.html.erb (0.5ms)
Rendered layouts/_navbar.html.erb (4.2ms)
Rendered layouts/_flashmessages.html.erb (0.1ms)
Rendered layouts/_footer.html.erb (0.0ms)
Completed 200 OK in 72ms (Views: 71.2ms | ActiveRecord: 0.2ms)
Contact.rb:
class Contact < ActiveRecord::Base
belongs_to :user
attr_accessible :body, :category, :email, :name, :subject
validates :body, presence: true, length: { in: 10..255 }
validates :category, presence: true
validates :name, presence: true
validates :email, presence: true
validates :subject, presence: true
end
_contact_form.html.erb:
<%= form_for(#contact) do |f| %>
<%= render 'common/form_errors', object: #contact %>
<div class="span4">
<div class="well">
<%= f.label :name, "What's your name?" %>
<%= f.text_field :name, :class => "field span4" %>
</div>
<div class="well">
<%= f.label :email, "Your Email so we can hit you back." %>
<%= f.text_field :email, :class => "field span4" %>
</div>
<div class="well">
<%= f.label :category, "Pick one:" %>
<%= select_tag(:category,
options_for_select(
[['I found a bug.', 'bug'], ['I have a suggestion.', 'suggestion'], ['other', 'other']]
)) %>
</div>
<div class="well">
<%= f.submit "Contact Us", :class=> "marginTopBottom" %>
</div>
</div>
<div class="span4">
<div class="well">
<%= f.label :subject, "Subject:" %>
<%= f.text_field :subject, :class => "field span4" %>
</div>
<div class="well">
<%= f.label :body, "What's Up?" %>
<%= f.text_area(:body, :rows => 7, :class => "field span4") %>
</div>
</div>
<% end %>
contacts/new.html.erb:
<%= provide(:navActive, 'Contact Us') %>
<h1>Contact Us</h1>
<div class="row">
<%= render 'contact_form' %>
</div>
contacts_controller.rb:
class ContactsController < ApplicationController
def new
#contact = Contact.new
end
def create
if logged_in?
#contact = current_user.contacts.build(params[:contact])
puts "logged in #{#contact}" # prints out when logged in
else
#contact = Contact.new(params[:contact])
#contact.user_id = 999999
puts "not logged in #{#contact}" # prints out when not logged in
end
if #contact.save
flash[:success] = "Your message was sent and we'll get back to you as soon as possible!"
# send an email to offering poster about the new request
UserMailer.contact(#contact, sent_at = Time.now).deliver
redirect_to contact_path
else
flash[:success] = "Your message was not sent. Something went wrong. Please contact pavankat#gmail.com."
redirect_to contact_path
end
end
end
routes.rb
resources :contacts, only: [:new, :create]
schema.rb:
create_table "contacts", :force => true do |t|
t.string "name"
t.string "email"
t.string "category"
t.string "subject"
t.string "body"
t.datetime "created_at", :null => false
t.datetime "updated_at", :null => false
t.integer "user_id"
end
add_index "contacts", ["user_id"], :name => "index_contacts_on_user_id"

Answer 1

I don't think it's skipping the validation, I think there's no way for your page to show the error.
You need to add <%= flash[:success] %> somewhere on the page.
You can also output errors for the contact object, which might help!
(You may refute this by posting the content of common/form_errors -

Answer 2

It should be:
<%= f.select(:category,
options_for_select(
[['I found a bug.', 'bug'], ['I have a suggestion.', 'suggestion'], ['other', 'other']]
)) %>