I just can't get my valid password test to pass - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm trying to get my valid password test to pass. When I run it it seems that the password_digest hash is different. I don't know what to do to get them to match.
I was mostly using the book "Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Rails by Example" by Michael Hartl and it seems that he gets this to pass.
Additionally, my application code works just as expected. I can create a user and authenticate them in the console so this is only breaking in tests.
I'm fairly new to testing so I may be missing something obvious here.
Thanks for your help!
I am using bcrypt with has_secure_password and here's part relavent user spec code:
describe User do
before { #user = User.new(name: "Example User", email: "user#example.com", password: "foobar", password_confirmation: "foobar") }
subject { #user }
it { should respond_to(:name) }
it { should respond_to(:email) }
it { should respond_to(:password_digest) }
it { should respond_to(:password) }
it { should respond_to(:password_confirmation) }
it { should respond_to(:authenticate) }
it { should be_valid }
describe "return value of authenticate method" do
before { #user.save }
let(:found_user) { User.find_by(email: #user.email) }
describe "with a valid password" do
it { should eq found_user.authenticate(#user.password) }
end
describe "with an invalid password" do
let(:user_for_invalid_password) { found_user.authenticate('invalid') }
it { should_not eq user_for_invalid_password }
specify { expect(user_for_invalid_password).to be_false }
end
end
end
And this is my user model
class User < ActiveRecord::Base
before_save { self.email = email.downcase }
validates :name, presence: true, length: { maximum: 50 }
VALID_EMAIL_REGEX = /\A[\w+\-.]+#[a-z\d\-]+(\.[a-z]+)*\.[a-z]+\z/i
validates :email, presence: true, uniqueness: { case_sensitive: false }, format: { with: VALID_EMAIL_REGEX }
has_secure_password
validates :password_confirmation, presence: true
validates :password, length: { minimum: 6 }
end

Answer 1

The problem is in your before { #user.save }. You may not have realized it, but before defaults to before(:each), which means this code runs before each example in the group. You probably expected it to default to before(:all), which runs only once, before all examples in the group.
As you mentioned, you aren't clearing the database after each test. Therefore, before each test, you are calling #user.save. This silently fails validation by returning false, because you are trying to create another user with the same email address. It's better to use #save! so validation exceptions are thrown, making problems like this more obvious.
To summarize:
Explicitly use before(:all) or before(:each)
Use #save! instead of #save
Clear the database between each test (try out Database Cleaner)