We were checking content which was already present/absent before making
a certain request, so the expectations were not checking the request had
already finished. Our intention here is to check the page contents after
the request has finished.
We want to make sure the request is finished after clicking a button and
before visiting a different page, so we need to check the page has
changed.
Usually this shouldn't be a problem because most of our forms are sent
with regular HTTP requests instead of AJAX ones, so the `visit` method
wouldn't be called before the request is finished.
However, we're experiencing problems with certain version of
Chromedriver, and in general it's a good practice because we might send
forms using AJAX/Turbolinks in the future.
In general, we shold check the contents of the page instead of the
current path, since the contents of the page are what users experience.
In one test, the only reason we check the current path additionally to
the contents of the page is to make sure we're still in the management
section.
Checking just that we avoid querying the database after starting the
browser.
When we create a record like a debate or an event and we check the page
content, we want to make sure that today's date is present, since it's
the date where the record is supposed to have been created.
This way we avoid querying the database after the browser has been
started.
It's strange to create records without assigning them to a variable and
then query the database to fetch the very same records. Assigning them
to a variable makes the tests easier to understand.
Besides, this way we avoid querying the database after the browser has
started.
This way we avoid modifying the database in the middle of a system test
(after we've started the browser), which can lead to database
inconsistencies.
In the case of the reclassification specs we're simply removing part of
the test because that part is already tested by other specs.
Users don't care about database content; they care about what they see
on the screen.
Writing tests this way we also avoid potencial database inconsistencies
due to accessing the database after starting the browser.
Checking the database with methods like Activity.last does not test that
the record is present where it should be (first record of the table in
this case). In these tests there's only one record, though, so the order
doesn't matter that match.
However, calling methods like Activity.last generates a database query
after the process running the browser has been started, and this might
lead to inconsistent data.
We take the comment as a parameter instead of the user, since usually
people reply to comments and not to users.
We also remove one database query after the browser has started, since
we can use `debate_path(debate)`. It's also more clear why we're using
`debate_path` in the test; before these changes, we had to enter the
`reply_to` method to realize that we were replying on a debate.
What users care about isn't the database; they care about that reason
being displayed when administrators check the reason.
This way we also avoid accessing the database after the process running
the browser has been started.
System tests are about user experience, so instead of checking the slug
has been updated in the database, we check whether the page can be
accessed using the slug.
Note the budget group test is a bit different because the name of the
group isn't present in the budget group page.
We were checking the database, but users don't care about what's inside
the database; they care about what happens when they visit the page of a
record they've just restored.
This way we also avoid data inconsistency due to the process running the
test accessing the database after the process running the browser has
started.
We check the changes have been saved and we check recommendations have
been disabled after visiting the debates and proposals pages. The
latter helps us avoid accessing the database after the process running
the browser has been started.
These tests check what happens from the user's point of view. For
instance, we check that after disabling recommendations, they are not
shown. What happens in the database is not related to the user
experience.
Furthermore, checking the database after the browser has started is
proving to be a major source for inconsistent data in specs.
We were checking what happens in the database, but what's important is
what users experience after hiding content or blocking authors. Besides,
accessing the database in tests after the browser has started might lead
to database inconsistencies.
Just like we mentioned in commit 5f0c422eb, the filter "Mark as viewed"
doesn't work properly, so here's a case where the test would fail with
JavaScript not because the test is wrong, but due to a bug. The test was
passing simplify because there was a typo in the CSS selector, which was
supposed to select an element by ID but didn't have the "#" prefix.
For now we're keeping the test as it was, but eventually we'll have to
fix the bug.
We were adding a `visit` in a `before` block but then we started some
tests with another `visit`.
We also destroyed records in the database in between, which increased
the risk of database inconsistency since the process running the browser
had already been started.
Besides, some tests were wrong; they were visiting a page with the
browser, then destroying records in the database, and then checking the
page without reloading the browser. Since we aren't automatically
refreshing the affected areas of the page, obviously the page content
before and after destroying records is exactly the same, and the test
was passing because it's testing content that isn't there in any
situation.
We were updating the database after starting the browser to emulate the
behavior where a user logs in a day before the current request. We can
use `current_sign_in_at` instead and devise will automatically copy that
value to `last_sign_in_at` after users visit a page.
This way we avoid setting up the database after the process runnin the
browser has been started.
Changing the database after the process running the browser has started
is proving to be one of the reasons tests are failing sometimes, so
we're reducing the number of times were that happens. In this case, we
were changing a setting.
We were adding a `visit` in a `before` block but then we started the
search tests with another `visit`.
We also created records in the database in between, which increased the
risk of database inconsistency since the process running the browser had
already been started.
Just like we did in commit 0ec8878db, we remove the useless initial
request in the `before` filter since most tests started by visiting a
different URL.
We also reduce the risk of database inconsistency which comes with
setting up the database after the browser has been started.
The test was hanging sometimes on my machine, probably because we
weren't making sure the request submitting the form had finished before
visiting a new page.
In theory the spec should have been fine from a technical point of view:
since submitting the form generates a regular HTTP request (and not an
AJAX one), Capybara/Selenium/Chromedrive should wait until the request
is finished. But that doesn't seem to be the case 100% of the time;
maybe conditions change depending on previous tests.
On the other hand, from a design point of view, the spec wasn't that
fine. The main purpose of system specs is to test the way users interact
with our application, and users don't click a button and immediately
visit a different page. Instead, most users wait until they receive
feedback of their actions, and then they visit a different page.
Of course some users might visit another page without waiting. What
happens then cannot be predicted (it will depend on which request is
handled first), and so there's no point in writing a test for this case
unless there's a specific concurrency issue we'd like to check.
Even after the previous changes, this test is still failing sometimes
(although now it fails for a different reason). We're doing this change
in order to discard it as the reason why the test is failing.
There seems to be an issue with capybara or chromedriver which results
in `fill_in` sometimes appending to an input rather than overwriting
[1], causing some tests to fail under certain circumstances.
Clearing fields before filling them in solves the issue.
Note we're now getting warnings on all tests using the rack driver. I
haven't found a way to avoid the `clear: :backspace` option in
non-JavaScript tests, so to avoid the annoying warnings we should reduce
the number of tests using the rack driver even more.
[1] See issue 2419 in https://github.com/teamcapybara/capybara/issues
In the Management section when creating an investment we were not passing the
document attributes, so we were never able to associate documents.
Make the nested_documentable spec compatible with the Management section.
In the Management section when creating an investment we were not passing the
images attributes, so we were never able to associate images.
Make the nested_imageable spec compatible with the Management section.
We had a test failing several times in GitHub Actions where a user was
still logged in even after logout.
This issue can be reproduced running:
```
rspec spec/system/moderation/proposal_notifications_spec.rb:71 \
spec/system/notifications_spec.rb:126 --order defined
```
One possible cause is a concurrency issue because the process running
the test and the process running the browser both access the same
database connection. Maybe some database operations leak between tests
due to that, particularly if the previous test accessed the database
after starting the browser as well.
A way to avoid this possible cause is setting up the database before
starting the browser with a call to `visit`.
Many management actions only make sense if a user has been selected
beforehand.
We updated :check_verified_user method to be able to check actions that need to
have a user selected in order to avoid exceptions.
We need this control as :only_verified_user is not restrictive enough. The reason is
that the :managed_user method used in the :only_verified_user if it does not find a
user it does an initializce (find_or_initialize_by). This causes that when we have
"skip_verification" to true, it returns this non-persisted user as "verified".
These changes affect the actions of Account, Budgets and Proposals Controller
when no user is selected.
We prepare the file to be able to include specs
that do not need to have a logged-in user.
We also took the opportunity to not execute this
line in some specs where it was not necessary.
GitHub Actions is failing to finish sometimes. Usually that happens due
to concurrency issues when the process running the test accesses the
database after the process running the browser has started.
Since these files were the ones being tested the times we had this
issue, these are the ones we are fixing right now, although there are
probably other places where we might have this issue in the future.
We've got quite a messy hack to sign in managers: they need to visit a
specific URL (management root path).
That means tests signing in managers start the browser to sign them in,
which might cause issues if we setup the database after that.
