Testing HABTM with rspec and factory girl

artists_releases_spec.rb

require 'spec_helper'

describe "Artists to releases relationship" do

  before(:all) do
    @kanye = FactoryGirl.create(:artist, :name => 'Kanye West')
    @jz = FactoryGirl.create(:artist, :name => 'Jay Z')
    @watch_the_throne = FactoryGirl.create(:release, :name => 'Watch the Throne')
    @dropout = FactoryGirl.create(:release, :name => 'The College Dropout')
  end

  it "should recognise when an artist has no releases" do
    @kanye.releases.count.should == 0
  end
  
  it "should handle an artist with a release" do
    @kanye.releases << @dropout
    @kanye.releases.count.should == 1
  end
    
  # (testing 2-way fixup)
  it "should automatically know a release's artist" do
    @kanye.releases << @dropout
    @dropout.artists.count.should == 1
  end
  
  it "should hanlde an artist collaboration" do
    @kanye.releases << @watch_the_throne
    @jz.releases << @watch_the_throne
    
    @watch_the_throne.artists.count.should == 2
  end
  
end

I did a similar implementation. Except in my case artist = user and release = team.

Following is my method that is similar to your test at line 27.

it "should automatically know a player's teams" do
 @pucks.users << @harsha
 @holics.users << @harsha
 expect(@harsha.teams.size).to eql 2
end

The problem is that the test is failing with the following error.

Failure/Error: expect(@harsha.teams.size).to eql 2

       expected: 2
            got: 1

       (compared using eql?)
     # ./spec/models/teams_users_spec.rb:36:in `block (2 levels) in <top (required)>'

associations are working as expected through the rails console. Do you, by any chance, have ideas as to why this is happening?