When I run unit tests with a syntax error in one of my models (in this case, it was an unterminated quote), I get this error, which suggests to me that whatever code is autoloading the model while it''s loading my fixtures is masking the error (I don''t get any notification of the syntax error, here, nor in the log). Bob bob@gemini:~/rails/windsong$ ruby -Ilib:test -S testrb test/unit/movie_test.rb Loaded suite movie_test.rb Started E Finished in 0.063497 seconds. 1) Error: test_basic(MovieTest): NoMethodError: undefined method `primary_key'' for nil:NilClass /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:298:in `find'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:149:in `instantiate_fixtures'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:149:in `each'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:149:in `instantiate_fixtures'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:147:in `each_with_index'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:147:in `each'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:147:in `each_with_index'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:147:in `instantiate_fixtures'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:360:in `instantiate_fixtures'' /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-1.4.0/lib/active_record/fixtures.rb:345:in `setup'' 1 tests, 0 assertions, 0 failures, 1 errors