Capybara with Selenium not rendering partial

Question

What would cause Capybara (with selenium-webkit as the driver) to not render a partial in a Ruby on Rails 4.2.5 view? I have a pretty standard setup (spec helper included) and nothing fancy going on in the view directly relating to the partial that I can see (such as conditionals not allowing something in a test environment or something or other). Kinda lost on this one.

ENV['RAILS_ENV'] ||= 'test'

require 'spec_helper'
require File.expand_path('../../config/environment', __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'

require 'capybara/rails'
require 'capybara/rspec'

require 'email_spec'
require 'database_cleaner'
require 'bcrypt'
require 'sidekiq/testing'
Sidekiq::Testing.inline!

require 'rake'
require 'vcr'
require 'webmock'
require 'webmock/rspec'

Bookly::Application.load_tasks

require 'simplecov'
require 'metric_fu/metrics/rcov/simplecov_formatter'
SimpleCov.formatter = SimpleCov::Formatter::MultiFormatter[
  SimpleCov::Formatter::HTMLFormatter,
  SimpleCov::Formatter::MetricFu
]

SimpleCov.start do
  add_filter '/spec/'
  add_filter '/config/'
  add_filter '/lib/'
  add_filter '/vendor/'

  add_group 'Controllers', 'app/controllers'
  add_group 'Models', 'app/models'
  add_group 'Helpers', 'app/helpers'
  add_group 'Mailers', 'app/mailers'
  add_group 'Views', 'app/views'
  add_group 'Services', 'app/services'
  add_group 'Workers', 'app/workers'
  add_group 'Presenters', 'app/presenters'
  add_group 'Decorators', 'app/decorators'

  minimum_coverage 80
end

include ActionDispatch::TestProcess

# Requires supporting ruby files with custom matchers and macros, etc, in
# spec/support/ and its subdirectories. Files matching `spec/**/*_spec.rb` are
# run as spec files by default. This means that files in spec/support that end
# in _spec.rb will both be required and run as specs, causing the specs to be
# run twice. It is recommended that you do not name files matching this glob to
# end with _spec.rb. You can configure this pattern with the --pattern
# option on the command line or in ~/.rspec, .rspec or `.rspec-local`.
Dir[Rails.root.join('spec/support/**/*.rb')].each { |f| require f }
Dir[Rails.root.join('spec/fakes/**/*.rb')].each { |f| require f }

# Checks for pending migrations before tests are run.
# If you are not using ActiveRecord, you can remove this line.
ActiveRecord::Migration.maintain_test_schema!

# Capybara Settings
# Capybara.register_driver :poltergeist do |app|
#   Capybara::Poltergeist::Driver.new(app, { debug: false })
# end
# Capybara.register_driver :selenium_chrome do |app|
#   Capybara::Selenium::Driver.new(app, :browser => :chrome)
# end

Capybara.javascript_driver = :selenium
Capybara.default_max_wait_time = 10

RSpec.configure do |config|
  # Reduce cost
  BCrypt::Engine::DEFAULT_COST = 1

  # If you're not using ActiveRecord, or you'd prefer not to run each of your
  # examples within a transaction, remove the following line or assign false
  # instead of true.
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = false
  config.include FactoryGirl::Syntax::Methods
  config.include EmailSpec::Helpers
  config.include EmailSpec::Matchers
  config.include LoginMacros
  config.include SecurityMacros
  config.include ResourceAccessMacros
  config.include ActiveSupport::Testing::TimeHelpers

  config.before(:suite) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
  end

  config.before(:all) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean_with(:truncation)
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
    Sidekiq::Worker.clear_all
  end

  config.before(:each, js: true) do
    DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :truncation
  end

  config.before(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.start
  end

  config.after(:each) do
    DatabaseCleaner.clean
  end

  config.before(:all) do
    # Rake::Task['init:yodlee'].invoke
    DeferredGarbageCollection.start
  end

  config.after(:all) do
    DeferredGarbageCollection.reconsider
  end

  # RSpec Rails can automatically mix in different behaviours to your tests
  # based on their file location, for example enabling you to call `get` and
  # `post` in specs under `spec/controllers`.
  #
  # You can disable this behaviour by removing the line below, and instead
  # explicitly tag your specs with their type, e.g.:
  #
  #     RSpec.describe UsersController, :type => :controller do
  #       # ...
  #     end
  #
  # The different available types are documented in the features, such as in
  # https://relishapp.com/rspec/rspec-rails/docs
  config.infer_spec_type_from_file_location!
end

The view in question:

<div class="expanded clearfix">
    <div class="inline-form edit-form clearfix">
      <%= render partial: 'transactions/form', locals: { transaction: transaction.object } %>
    </div>
  </div>

Answer 1

I had exactly the same issue. It turns out, that Capybara wasn't able to see the data. I verified this, by including two counts in my index.html.haml, just before the render partial call.

    %p= Example.count # => 14 # as seeded
    %p= @examples.count # => 0 # explains why partial wasn't rendering!
    = render @examples

With new set of search terms I found this Capybara server can't access data created in a spec

And there, a link to, where point "3. Use shared connection with transactional fixtures" solved my issue. Even though I am not using fixtures. http://blog.plataformatec.com.br/2011/12/three-tips-to-improve-the-performance-of-your-test-suite/

So I added to my spec_helper.rb the following lines, and now the partial renders correctly:

  class ActiveRecord::Base
    mattr_accessor :shared_connection
    @@shared_connection = nil

   def self.connection
     @@shared_connection || retrieve_connection
   end
 end

 ActiveRecord::Base.shared_connection = ActiveRecord::Base.connection