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Rails 7.1: Issue with ActiveRecord callbacks not firing on nested attribute updates

๐Ÿ‘€ Views: 99 ๐Ÿ’ฌ Answers: 1 ๐Ÿ“… Created: 2025-06-30
ruby-on-rails activerecord callbacks Ruby

I'm building a feature where I'm working on a personal project and I'm working on a personal project and I'm experiencing a frustrating issue with ActiveRecord callbacks in Rails 7.1..... I have a `Project` model that has many `Tasks`, and I'm using nested attributes to update tasks through the project form. However, it seems that the `before_save` callback on the `Project` model isn't firing when I update the nested `Tasks`. I expected the callback to trigger and run my custom logic, but itโ€™s being skipped entirely. Hereโ€™s a simplified version of my models: ```ruby class Project < ApplicationRecord has_many :tasks, dependent: :destroy accepts_nested_attributes_for :tasks before_save :update_project_status private def update_project_status # Custom logic to update the project status self.status = 'updated' if tasks.any? { |task| task.completed? } end end class Task < ApplicationRecord belongs_to :project def completed? # Some logic to check if the task is completed self.status == 'completed' end end ``` In my controller, Iโ€™m using strong parameters like this: ```ruby class ProjectsController < ApplicationController def update @project = Project.find(params[:id]) if @project.update(project_params) redirect_to @project else render :edit end end private def project_params params.require(:project).permit(:name, tasks_attributes: [:id, :status]) end end ``` When I update a project and include nested task updates, the `before_save` callback does not execute. I've verified that the `update` method is being called, and I can see the changes in the database. However, the status of the project remains unchanged, and my custom logic is not applied. Iโ€™ve tried adding debugging statements to confirm whether the callback is reached, but it never gets triggered when updating tasks. Also, I checked if the callback works when I update the project without changing any nested attributes, and it triggers correctly. Could this be related to how the nested attributes are being processed? Is there a way to ensure that the callback fires when tasks are being updated? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Is there a better approach? My development environment is macOS. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. Any ideas what could be causing this? This is part of a larger REST API I'm building. I'm using Ruby 3.10 in this project. Any advice would be much appreciated.