Rails Fixtures not loading with rspec

If you want to set up your fixtures globally, inside your spec_helper or rails_helper you can add:

RSpec.configure do |config|
  config.global_fixtures = :all
end

It took me a really long time to figure this out myself.

# spec/rails_helper.rb

RSpec.configure do |config|
#  config.file_fixture_path = Rails.root / 'test' / 'fixtures' # <= incorrect
  config.fixture_path = Rails.root / 'test' / 'fixtures'

then, as stated on other comments, use

RSpec.describe 'Events API', type: :request do
  fixtures :events

If you define fixtures as 'users', then the way to use them is via the method with the same name:

describe PagesController do
  integrate_views
  fixtures :users
  it "should render index template on index call when logged in" do
    session[:user_id] = users(:foo).id
    get 'index'
    response.should render_template('index')
  end
end

The singular is only relevant to the class itself (User). Hope you still have some hair left if this is just a one letter bug.