ng-animate 1.5.5 - ng-animate-ref - Cannot read property 'setHost' of undefined (angular-animate.js:3246)

[jantimon]

Steps to reproduce and a minimal demo of the problem
Plunkr: http://plnkr.co/edit/rO7zneeJAWVNc4Ndck0i?p=preview

.row.ng-anchor-in-add {
    // How long should the move IN take:
    transition: 0.5s linear all;
}

Steps to reproduce:

1. Click at start.

Current behavior

Javascript error:

TypeError: Cannot read property 'setHost' of undefined
    at p (angular-animate.js:3246)
    at Array.d.push.fn (angular-animate.js:3078)
    at c (angular-animate.js:423)
    at b (angular-animate.js:393)
    at angular-animate.js:3087
    at n.$digest (angular.js:17123)
    at n.$apply (angular.js:17337)
    at HTMLAnchorElement.<anonymous> (angular.js:25023)
    at Qf (angular.js:3456)
    at HTMLAnchorElement.Pf.d (angular.js:3444)

Expected/desired behavior

Should start the ng-animate-ref animation

Other information

The bug occurs only if the following css lines are missing:

.row.ng-leave {
    transition: 0.2s linear all;
}

[gkalpak]

This seems to happen because $animate assumes there is going to be an AnimateRunner associated with the leaving element and is trying to set its host. This breaks when there is no leave animation, because:

1. The element is immediately removed from the DOM.
2. As part of removing an element, jqLite/jQuery will remove it's data.
3. Since the reference to the AnimateRunner is kept in the element's data, it is not possible for $animate to get hold of the AnimateRunner.
4. It breaks on getRunner(element).setHost(host).

I think - since having no animation is a valid usecase - $animate should not assume that there is always going to be a runner, so the problem should be solved by changing the code to something like:

var runner = getRunner(element);
if (runner) runner.setHost(host);

I'll submit a PR later.

[jantimon]

Wow that was quick! 👍

[gkalpak]

I'm having a hard time writing a test for this 😒