Why is my nested Reports::Projects route misrouting in development?

This is a namespacing/autoloading issue that only appears in development because of how Rails 3 auto-reloads constants. In production the classes are eager loaded, so the correct controller is already in memory, whereas in development Rails may resolve the constant to the non‐namespaced ProjectsController (or raise an error) if the file/folder structure or naming isn’t exactly as expected.

Here are a few steps to resolve the issue:

1. Check your file structure and class declaration.
   Ensure your controller file is at:

   app/controllers/reports/projects_controller.rb

   And that its contents follow the proper namespacing:

   RUBYCopied
   module Reports
     class ProjectsController < ApplicationController
       load_resource
       before_filter :set_active_tab
       # ...
     end
   end

   This prevents Rails from “guessing” the wrong constant.

2. Verify your routes.
   Make sure the routes are defined inside a namespace block or explicitly reference the proper namespaced controller. For example:

   RUBYCopied
   namespace :reports do
     resources :projects
   end

   This way Rails knows to map the URL /reports/projects to Reports::ProjectsController.

3. Review CanCan’s constant resolution.
   CanCan (or CanCanCan) uses the controller name to load resources. If the autoloading is off the mark, it might refer to the wrong constant. By ensuring the correct structure and naming in step 1, that issue should disappear.

4. Clear cache/restart the server in development.
   Sometimes restarting the development server ensures that the latest file structure and constants are loaded correctly.

By ensuring your file structure, class/module definitions, and routing configuration closely follow Rails conventions, development will resolve to the correct Reports::ProjectsController just as production does.