Error when trying to run rspec: `require': cannot load such file — rails_helper (LoadError)

Question

I am trying to run rspec for Ruby on Rails. I am running Rails 4.1.1. I have installed the gem, have established a spec folder with some tests. I have created a directory

Answer 1

There is some problem with rspec V3. But in your case you are using V2.

change

require 'rails_helper'

to

require 'spec_helper'

Other description find here https://teamtreehouse.com/forum/problem-with-rspec

For V3 :

If someone using rspec V3 then similar error occurs when generator not run. So before trying anything run generator.

rails generate rspec:install

If you are getting a huge list of warning on your console. Then you need to remove --warnings from .rspec file.

Answer 2

For me, the problem was due to a different "rspec-support" version loaded and activated. I solved by prepending a "bundle exec":

bundle exec rspec

Answer 3

You may also have your file named incorrectly. Make sure it ends in _spec.rb. I had misspelled my file to end in _soec.rb and was scratching my head for a while...

Answer 4

I had the same error but there was no reference to rails_helper anywhere and we weren't even using rails.

However, I eventually found that my ~/.rspec was requiring rails_helper (presumably from creating rails app in the past) which was causing the issue ...

$ cat ~/.rspec
--color
--format documentation
--require spec_helper
--require rails_helper

The fix is as simple as removing that line. Hope this helps someone else grappling with the same issue!

Answer 5

Sometimes you need to run rspec command from Project's parent directory

Answer 6

I got the error you described when running a controller test. However, when I ran a model test, I got the true error. it ended up saying that the error was occuring because my database wasn't migrated. I fixed the error by running this command...

rake db:test:prepare