Rails / Devise / Omniauth combo says email is nil but it's not

Question

I was setting up Devise & Omniauth as per railscasts like I usually do, only now I'm using Rails 5.0.1 and ruby 2.3.3

When I go to add a user, not even using Omniauth, just using a basic email + password + confirmation the page reloads with an error of "Email can't be blank". I can see the parameters include the email.

I used Pry to investigate - things get weird here.

[1] pry(#<RegistrationsController>)> params
=> <ActionController::Parameters {"utf8"=>"✓", "authenticity_token"=>"[removed this!]", "user"=><ActionController::Parameters {"email"=>"[email protected]", "password"=>"testtest", "password_confirmation"=>"testtest"} permitted: false>, "commit"=>"Sign up", "controller"=>"registrations", "action"=>"create"} permitted: false>
[3] pry(#<RegistrationsController>)> @user
=> #<User id: nil, email: "[email protected]", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, first_name: nil, last_name: nil, image_url: nil, headline: nil, dob: nil, gender: nil, webpage_url: nil, twitter: nil, linkedin: nil, blog_url: nil, description: nil, country: nil, state: nil, city: nil, phone: nil, full_bio: nil, profile_claimed: nil>
[4] pry(#<RegistrationsController>)> @user.class
=> User(id: integer, email: string, encrypted_password: string, reset_password_token: string, reset_password_sent_at: datetime, remember_created_at: datetime, sign_in_count: integer, current_sign_in_at: datetime, last_sign_in_at: datetime, current_sign_in_ip: string, last_sign_in_ip: string, created_at: datetime, updated_at: datetime, first_name: string, last_name: string, image_url: string, headline: string, dob: date, gender: string, webpage_url: string, twitter: string, linkedin: string, blog_url: string, description: text, country: string, state: string, city: string, phone: string, full_bio: text, type: string, profile_claimed: boolean)
[5] pry(#<RegistrationsController>)> @user.email
=> nil
[7] pry(#<RegistrationsController>)> @user.errors
=> #<ActiveModel::Errors:0x007f9de2c82da0
 @base=
  #<User id: nil, email: "[email protected]", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, first_name: nil, last_name: nil, image_url: nil, headline: nil, dob: nil, gender: nil, webpage_url: nil, twitter: nil, linkedin: nil, blog_url: nil, description: nil, country: nil, state: nil, city: nil, phone: nil, full_bio: nil, profile_claimed: nil>,
 @details={:email=>[{:error=>:blank}, {:error=>:blank}]},
 @messages={:email=>["can't be blank"], :password=>[], :password_confirmation=>[]}>
[8] pry(#<RegistrationsController>)> @user.email.class
=> NilClass

You can see that if I access @user it returns the hash containing the email. However if I try @user.email I get nil. And when I ask for @user.errors the message says email can't be blank.

I've been hunting a while on this one. Thanks in advance for any help!

--

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  before_action :configure_permitted_parameters, if: :devise_controller?

  protected

  def configure_permitted_parameters
    devise_parameter_sanitizer.permit(:sign_up, keys: [:email])
  end
end

---

Puma server.

Started POST "/users" for ::1 at 2017-01-07 20:42:57 -0500
Processing by RegistrationsController#create as HTML
  Parameters: {"utf8"=>"✓", "authenticity_token"=>"tfBeZtXEFdZV9Rx3dJgCQJ+9hHuvgFcbc3dD9D7Q6yKki4GmlVw17/qlDm2squ3hKngX3Juu12iaM1Dki9qXig==", "user"=>{"email"=>"[email protected]", "password"=>"[FILTERED]", "password_confirmation"=>"[FILTERED]"}, "commit"=>"Sign up"}
   (0.1ms)  begin transaction
   (0.1ms)  rollback transaction
  Rendering registrations/new.html.erb within layouts/application
  Rendered devise/shared/_links.html.erb (0.7ms)
  Rendered registrations/new.html.erb within layouts/application (4.6ms)

-- rails console

Running via Spring preloader in process 12578
Loading development environment (Rails 5.0.1)
2.3.3 :001 > u = User.new
 => #<User id: nil, email: "", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, first_name: nil, last_name: nil, image_url: nil, headline: nil, dob: nil, gender: nil, webpage_url: nil, twitter: nil, linkedin: nil, blog_url: nil, description: nil, country: nil, state: nil, city: nil, phone: nil, full_bio: nil, profile_claimed: nil> 
2.3.3 :002 > u.email = "[email protected]"
 => "[email protected]" 
2.3.3 :003 > u.password = "password"
 => "password" 
2.3.3 :004 > u.password_confirmation = "password"
 => "password" 
2.3.3 :005 > u.save
   (0.2ms)  begin transaction
   (0.1ms)  rollback transaction
 => false 
2.3.3 :006 > u.errors
 => #<ActiveModel::Errors:0x007f87163eeac8 @base=#<User id: nil, email: "[email protected]", created_at: nil, updated_at: nil, first_name: nil, last_name: nil, image_url: nil, headline: nil, dob: nil, gender: nil, webpage_url: nil, twitter: nil, linkedin: nil, blog_url: nil, description: nil, country: nil, state: nil, city: nil, phone: nil, full_bio: nil, profile_claimed: nil>, @messages={:email=>["can't be blank"]}, @details={:email=>[{:error=>:blank}, {:error=>:blank}]}>

Answer 1

I believe permitted: false says that your parameters are not permitted and can't be saved. Did you set up strong parameters for Users controller?