Rails 4.0 RuntimeError: @controller is nil: make sure you set it in your test's setup method

Question

When I run controller (or functional) tests, Rails 4.0 fails to auto-instantiate a controller instance (@controller) even though the same tests ran fine in Rails 3.2.
Any suggestions about how to begin solving this issue?

Sample output:

 $ ruby -Ilib:test test/controllers/account_controller_test.rb
[Coveralls] Set up the SimpleCov formatter.
[Coveralls] Using SimpleCov's 'rails' settings.
warning: parser/current is loading parser/ruby21, which recognizes
warning: 2.1.5-compliant syntax, but you are running 2.1.3.

...

  1) Error:
AccountControllerTest#test_activate_api_key:
NoMethodError: undefined method `before_filter' for AccountController:Class
    app/controllers/account_controller.rb:47:in `<class:AccountController>'
    app/controllers/account_controller.rb:46:in `<top (required)>'

  2) Error:
AccountControllerTest#test_add_mugshot:
RuntimeError: @controller is nil: make sure you set it in your test's setup method.
    test/functional_test_case.rb:26:in `post'
    test/controller_extensions.rb:533:in `assert_request'
    test/controller_extensions.rb:202:in `either_requires_either'
    test/controller_extensions.rb:137:in `post_requires_login'
    test/controllers/account_controller_test.rb:418:in `test_add_mugshot'

Account Controller definition:

class AccountController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :login_required, :except => [

Application Controller:

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base

AccountController is defined in: https://github.com/JoeCohen/mushroom-observer/blob/ror4-joe/app/controllers/account_controller.rb — user2069311, Dec 02 '14 at 13:15
Based on the name of the test file (account_controller_test.rb), Rails 3 deduces the name (and location) of the controller and instantiates the controller defined in app / controllers / account_controller.rb. I thought that Rails 4.0 is supposed to do that also. — user2069311, Dec 02 '14 at 17:21
I meant show your `app/controllers/account_controller.rb:` around 47th line — Малъ Скрылевъ, Dec 02 '14 at 17:22
Do you mean line 97? (Lines 1-96 are comments.) 43 # 44 ################################################################################ 45 46 class AccountController < ApplicationController 47 before_filter :login_required, :except => [ 48 :email_new_password, ... — user2069311, Dec 02 '14 at 17:34
added Account Controller and Application Controller class definition lines — user2069311, Dec 04 '14 at 17:04

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 19 '15 at 21:27

2

It seems that ApplicationController isn't derived from ActionController::Base when it was used during definition of the AccountController, so add require before AccountController declaration:

# file app/controllers/account_controller.rb
require 'app/controllers/application_controller'

class AccountController < ApplicationController
  before_filter :login_required, :except => [

edited Feb 19 '15 at 21:27

Felix

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answered Dec 04 '14 at 17:17

Малъ Скрылевъ

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Thank you Малъ Скрылевъ! Adding a require solved the problem. The problem appears to come from files loading in a different order in Rails 4. The application's test_helper file attempted to re-open the definition of ApplicationController. This worked fine in Rails 3. But it looks like Rails 4 loads test_helper before it loads the controllers. So instead of re-opening ApplicationController, the test_helper file gave it an initial definition, which did not derive from ActionController::Base. – user2069311 Dec 04 '14 at 21:46

Rails 4.0 RuntimeError: @controller is nil: make sure you set it in your test's setup method

1 Answers1