'no implicit conversion of Hash into String (TypeError)' on Travis CI

[Jeehut]

I'm currently working on an open source project where I use this gem alongside Devise. In my User class I included the following:

  # Include default devise modules.
  devise :database_authenticatable, :registerable,
          :recoverable, :rememberable, :trackable, :validatable,
          :confirmable, :omniauthable
  include DeviseTokenAuth::Concerns::User

I'm also using FactoryGirl in order to lint all my factories and added some specs to my project. When I run rspec on my development machine (tested with Ruby 2.1.7 and Ruby 2.2.2) then all specs pass successfully. But when I push my changes and things are run on Travis CI then I get the following error message:

/home/travis/build/Flinesoft/MovieAssistor/vendor/bundle/ruby/2.2.0/gems/factory_girl-4.5.0/lib/factory_girl/linter.rb:14:in `lint!': The following factories are invalid: (FactoryGirl::InvalidFactoryError)
* user - no implicit conversion of Hash into String (TypeError)

First I thought there's something wrong with my models. But after a few hours of trial-and-error style debugging I managed to locate the part that's causing this error: It's the above quoted code where I include the Devise and DeviseTokenAuth stuff into my User model.

I assume so because this commit fails on Travis CI (as you can see here) but the project was passing right before that commit (which you can see here).

Therefore my best guess is that something in this gem (or maybe even Devise directly?) is causing things to break on Travis CI. As it feels like a bug to me I'm posting this here instead of StackOverflow.

Feel free to checkout the 'fix-travis-ci-tests' branch in order to investigate further if needed.

I'm using v0.1.34 of devise_token_auth in a Rails 4.2.4 project.

[Jeehut]

I succeeded in replicating this issue on my development machine, too now:

When I run rake db:drop db:create db:migrate db:seed and then rspec I get the same error as I get on Travis CI. When I though do rake db:reset or rake db:drop db:create db:schema:load db:seed and then run rspec then everything succeeds again.

I really don't know where this comes from but as a workaround I have simply changed my .travis.yml file to state:

script:
  - bundle exec rake db:schema:load db:seed
  - bundle exec rspec

With this workaround my tests pass – but I wonder why db:migrate doesn't seem to work...

[ArneZsng]

I currently have a similar issue when running rake db:drop db:create db:migrate db:populate in one line. Strangely it works if I run rake db:drop db:create db:migrate and then rake db:populate after.

In this case, it fails due to:

TypeError: no implicit conversion of Hash into String
in
gems/devise_token_auth-0.1.34/app/models/devise_token_auth/concerns/user.rb:234:in `set_empty_token_hash'

I noticed that I have an earlier model identified by devise_token_auth with a column t.text for tokens which works fine, while the new migration for another model created a json column which fails in this scenario.

The decision for the column type is in
devise_token_auth/test/dummy/db/migrate/20140715061447_devise_token_auth_create_users.rb

      ## Tokens
      if json_supported_database?
        t.json :tokens
      else
        t.text :tokens
      end

Though json as column type feels cleaner to me, I am working with text for now as this seems to work.

[adamhunter]

👍 replicated when running bin/rake db:drop db:create db:schema:load db:seed. Everything works perfectly if I run bin/rake db:drop db:create db:schema:load && bin/rake db:seed. I assume this must have something to do with the active record connection cache when referencing json columns. That is just a stab in the dark though.

[vincilbishop]

I had this same problem using RubyMine, killing spring and restarting RubyMine did the trick. Would never have figured it out without this post. Thanks!

[ryaz]

+1 to @adamhunter

[Fudoshiki]

I have this issue too with gem spring
rake db:setup

-- create_table("users", {:force=>:cascade})
   -> 0.0062s
-- add_index("users", ["confirmation_token"], {:name=>"index_users_on_confirmation_token", :unique=>true, :using=>:btree})
   -> 0.0025s
-- add_index("users", ["email"], {:name=>"index_users_on_email", :using=>:btree})
   -> 0.0029s
-- add_index("users", ["reset_password_token"], {:name=>"index_users_on_reset_password_token", :unique=>true, :using=>:btree})
   -> 0.0053s
-- add_index("users", ["uid", "provider"], {:name=>"index_users_on_uid_and_provider", :unique=>true, :using=>:btree})
   -> 0.0056s
-- add_index("users", ["unlock_token"], {:name=>"index_users_on_unlock_token", :unique=>true, :using=>:btree})
   -> 0.0030s
-- initialize_schema_migrations_table()
   -> 0.0071s
rake aborted!
TypeError: no implicit conversion of Hash into String
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/json/decoding.rb:26:in `decode'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/coders/json.rb:9:in `load'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/type/serialized.rb:19:in `type_cast_from_database'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/type/mutable.rb:5:in `type_cast_from_user'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute.rb:110:in `type_cast'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute.rb:42:in `original_value'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute.rb:37:in `value'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute.rb:50:in `changed_from?'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/dirty.rb:142:in `_field_changed?'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/dirty.rb:115:in `save_changed_attribute'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods/dirty.rb:98:in `write_attribute'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/attribute_methods.rb:50:in `__temp__47f6b656e637'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/devise_token_auth-0.1.36/app/models/devise_token_auth/concerns/user.rb:235:in `set_empty_token_hash'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:432:in `block in make_lambda'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:228:in `block in halting_and_conditional'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:506:in `block in call'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:506:in `each'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:506:in `call'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:92:in `__run_callbacks__'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/callbacks.rb:778:in `_run_initialize_callbacks'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/core.rb:284:in `initialize'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/inheritance.rb:61:in `new'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/inheritance.rb:61:in `new'
/Users/user/Repository/work/curious-backend/db/seeds.rb:5:in `<top (required)>'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:268:in `load'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:268:in `block in load'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:240:in `load_dependency'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activesupport-4.2.5/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:268:in `load'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/railties-4.2.5/lib/rails/engine.rb:547:in `load_seed'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/tasks/database_tasks.rb:250:in `load_seed'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/gems/activerecord-4.2.5/lib/active_record/railties/databases.rake:183:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `eval'
/Users/user/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.3.0/bin/ruby_executable_hooks:15:in `<main>'
Tasks: TOP => db:setup => db:seed

[itsthatguy]

With the devise_token_auth migration for users, changing t.json :tokens to t.string :tokens seems to fix the issue.

I haven't confirmed that this will work for authentication, but given all of the column type checking (ie; https://github.com/lynndylanhurley/devise_token_auth/blob/master/app/models/devise_token_auth/concerns/user.rb#L26-L28) I am lead to believe it might.

[artemv]

+1 to @itsthatguy, confirm that this change works for auth, at least with Postgres - some DBs will be better with :text for that like @anthonynavarre did above

[prusswan]

Ran into this problem on the Trusty (beta) using Postgres 9.5
Resolved by creating the database, followed by bundle exec rake db:schema:load

[zachfeldman]

Seems like this problem has an accepted solution, so closing for now.