rspec returns “PG::Error: ERROR: relation ”table_name“ does not exist”

Question

Environment is REE(2011.12) on rvm, rspec 2.8.0, rails 3.0.6, and pg 0.13.2. Using PostgreSQL 8.3.17 on CentOS 5.6. The db:migrate have work correctly. But rspec have got following error.

1) ApiController articles OK
 Failure/Error: Unable to find matching line from backtrace
 ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid:
   PG::Error: ERROR:  relation "table_name" does not exist
   : DELETE FROM "table_name"

I'm updating my project from rails 2.3.5 with rspec 1.x series to rails 3.0 with rspec2. Copied all rspec tests, and I have merged old spec_helper.rb and new one(It was generated rails g rspec:install).

ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= 'test'
require File.expand_path("../../config/environment", __FILE__)
require 'rspec/rails'
require 'rspec/autorun'

Dir[Rails.root.join("spec/support/**/*.rb")].each {|f| require f}

RSpec.configure do |config|

  config.fixture_path = "#{::Rails.root}/spec/fixtures"
  config.use_transactional_fixtures = true

end

I read similar question about this error.So I tried rake db:test:prepare or rake db:test:load, But It's not resolve. Do you have any idea? It looks like the test hasn't run on test database... How do I do? :(

Answer 1

I've run into this in two instances (updated 6/13/2012):

First:

I haven't yet migrated my test database...

rake db:migrate

...which you need to do before both db:test:prepare and db:test:load.

When you invoke rspec it should prepare and load your database for you anyway. You shouldn't have to do that by hand.

Second:

A typo in my migration. I accidentally reversed my table and column names in the parameter list.

A migration on a Rails 3.1 project:

def change
  add_column :had_import_errors, :studies, :boolean, :default => false
  add_column :import_data_cache, :studies, :text
end

...which is wrong, because has_import_errors and import_data_cache are my column names, and they therefore should come second, not first.

The correct migration, with the table name first was:

def change
  add_column :studies, :had_import_errors, :boolean, :default => false
  add_column :studies, :import_data_cache, :text
end

Answer 2

This usually happens when you have rspec running while migrating (usually via guard). A simple solution is to quit guard, do the migration and restart guard.

Answer 3

It typically indicates that there is another open PostgreSql connection. To bubble up the right error try % rake db:test:prepare

Running test prepare showed the following below and when the open connection (PGAdmin in my case) was closed the issue was resolved.

rake aborted!
PG::Error: ERROR:  database "xyz_test" is being accessed by other users
DETAIL:  There are 1 other session(s) using the database.
: DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS "xyz_test"

Tasks: TOP => db:test:load => db:test:purge
(See full trace by running task with --trace)

Answer 4

Just hit this same error, nothing worked but dropping and re-creating the database, this fixed it for me.

rake db:drop db:create db:migrate