pytest fixture setup or teardown failure

Playbook ID: pytest-fixture-error Category: test Severity: medium Tags: pytest, python, fixture, setup, teardown, conftest

What this failure means

A pytest fixture failed during setup or teardown, causing the associated test to be marked as ERROR rather than FAILED. The test body never ran, or cleanup after the test raised an exception.

Common log signals

ERROR at setup of
ERROR at teardown of
fixture not found
fixture error
ScopeMismatch
could not import conftest
ERROR collecting
E   fixture

Diagnosis

A pytest fixture failed during setup or teardown, causing the associated test to be marked as ERROR rather than FAILED. The test body never ran, or cleanup after the test raised an exception.

Fix steps

1. Read the full ERROR at setup of <test_name> traceback. The relevant line is usually in the fixture body, not the test.
2. For fixture not found, check the fixture name spelling and confirm it is defined in conftest.py or imported in the same module.
3. For ScopeMismatch, widen the dependent fixture scope or pass the needed value directly.
4. Reproduce fixture setup locally with pytest -x --setup-show tests/path/to_test.py.
5. For teardown failures, make sure yield fixtures wrap cleanup in try/finally.

Validation

• pytest -x --setup-show tests/ completes without the original fixture error.
• pytest --co -q tests/ confirms pytest can still collect the expected suite.

Likely files to inspect

• conftest.py
• tests/conftest.py
• pytest.ini
• pyproject.toml

Run Faultline

faultline analyze build.log
faultline explain pytest-fixture-error
faultline workflow build.log --json --mode agent

Search phrases this page answers

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• Test: pytest fixture setup or teardown failure
• PytestWarning: PytestUnraisableExceptionWarning
• faultline explain pytest-fixture-error
• Python pytest fixture setup or teardown failure

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