# Empty text\_area yields 'Template is missing' error

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/empty-text-area-yields-template-is-missing-error/88228>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [March 9, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/empty-text-area-yields-template-is-missing-error/88228 "2007-03-09T01:03:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dankitania](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@dankitania](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dankitania)\
**Post date:** [March 9, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/empty-text-area-yields-template-is-missing-error/88228/1 "2007-03-09T01:03:38Z")

</div>

PROBLEM STATEMENT

My app gives a missing-template error if the user enters nothing into a  
provided text\_area. But if something is provided, everything works  
fine.

I’m still a newbie, so I don’t really understand the automatic  
connection between things. Is it a problem that I have  
“views/thingee/new.rhtml” and a “create” method in  
“controllers/thingee\_controller.rb”, where . stands for my thingee. I’m  
guessing not, since it’s OK if I give content to the text\_area. But  
maybe I’m still supposed to follow a convention, and the problem only  
crops up with empty content …???

You can tell by the fact that I write “thingee” that I don’t really know  
what words to use for things, and I’ve not discovered a standard  
convention by scanning these forum postings.

APPLICATION SETUP

1. In views/thingees/new.rhtml

\<% form\_for :foo, :url =\> {:action =\> ‘create’} do |form| %\>  
\<%= form.text\_area :content, :cols =\> 60, :rows =\> 4 %\>  
\<%= text\_field\_with\_auto\_complete :tag, :content, { :size =\> 60},  
{:skip\_style =\> false, :tokens =\> [’ ', ‘,’, ‘;’]} %\>  
\<%= submit\_tag “Submit” %\>  
\<% end %\>

1. In app/controllers/thingees\_controller

def create  
…  
if @rabbit.save  
(NEVER GETS HERE)  
…

1. In app/db/migrate/001\_create\_thingees.rb