Akka testing: it's a good idea to tell your actor system to leave a dead top-level actor dead.

gistfile1.txt

// In real life, it's great that stuff gets restarted when it fails.
// In testing, we'd rather know that it failed.

import akka.actor._
class DyingActor extends Actor {
  def receive = { case "die" => throw new Exception("poo") }
}

// Default config, everything restarts automatically
val system = ActorSystem("ordinary")
val dyingActor = val system.actorOf(Props(new DyingActor))
dyingActor.isTerminated
// false
dyingActor ! "die"
dyingActor.isTerminated
// false -- no indication that the actor was restarted

// so let's configure one that won't restart it
import com.typesafe.config.ConfigFactory
val stoppingConfigStr = """ akka.actor.guardian-supervisor-strategy = "akka.actor.StoppingSupervisorStrategy" """
val stoppingConfig = ConfigFactory.parseString(stoppingConfigStr)

val tenderSystem = ActorSystem("sensitive", stoppingConfig)
val stayingDeadActor = tenderSystem.actorOf(Props(new DyingActor))
stayingDeadActor.isTerminated
// false
stayingDeadActor ! "die"
stayingDeadActor.isTerminated
// true -- this is something we can check in our tests