Rubocop: Rubocop 0.64.0 failing without rubocop-rspec installed

[Nebulon-BFrigateFTW]

After upgrade to Rubocop 0.64.0, it fails on not being able to find rubocop-rspec, which the project I'm working on doesn't require (and we have had no configuration changes since the recent successful run with 0.63.1).

Note that this did happen in gitlab CI. I don't see how it possibly could be causing rubocop to demand rspec, but I will be doing testing to ensure this is actually rubocop's fault.

---

Expected behavior

Successful running after installing the gem, as here with 0.63.1:

$ gem install rubocop
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed jaro_winkler-1.5.2
Successfully installed parallel-1.13.0
Successfully installed ast-2.4.0
Successfully installed parser-2.6.0.0
Successfully installed powerpack-0.1.2
Successfully installed rainbow-3.0.0
Successfully installed ruby-progressbar-1.10.0
Successfully installed unicode-display_width-1.4.1
Successfully installed rubocop-0.63.1
9 gems installed
$ rubocop
Inspecting 404 files
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

404 files inspected, no offenses detected

Actual behavior

Failure:

$ gem install rubocop
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed jaro_winkler-1.5.2
Successfully installed parallel-1.13.0
Successfully installed ast-2.4.0
Successfully installed parser-2.6.0.0
Successfully installed powerpack-0.1.2
Successfully installed rainbow-3.0.0
Successfully installed ruby-progressbar-1.10.0
Successfully installed unicode-display_width-1.4.1
Successfully installed rubocop-0.64.0
9 gems installed
$ rubocop
cannot load such file -- rubocop-rspec
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/2.5.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require'
/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/2.5.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:54:in `require'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/config_loader_resolver.rb:15:in `block in resolve_requires'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/config_loader_resolver.rb:11:in `each'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/config_loader_resolver.rb:11:in `resolve_requires'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/config_loader.rb:44:in `load_file'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/config_loader.rb:82:in `configuration_from_file'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/config_store.rb:44:in `for'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:154:in `ruby_interpreters'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:147:in `ruby_executable?'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:163:in `ruby_file?'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:76:in `to_inspect?'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:65:in `block in target_files_in_dir'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:64:in `select'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:64:in `target_files_in_dir'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/target_finder.rb:31:in `find'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/runner.rb:67:in `find_target_files'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/runner.rb:43:in `run'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/cli.rb:174:in `execute_runner'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/cli.rb:75:in `execute_runners'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/lib/rubocop/cli.rb:47:in `run'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/exe/rubocop:13:in `block in <top (required)>'
/usr/local/lib/ruby/2.5.0/benchmark.rb:308:in `realtime'
/usr/local/bundle/gems/rubocop-0.64.0/exe/rubocop:12:in `<top (required)>'
/usr/local/bundle/bin/rubocop:23:in `load'
/usr/local/bundle/bin/rubocop:23:in `<main>'

Steps to reproduce the problem

Don't install rubocop-rspec, don't require it in .rubocop.yml, then run rubocop.

RuboCop version

0.64.0

[Nebulon-BFrigateFTW]

Further testing showed this to be some kind of very, very bizarre issue with gitlab CI caching and almost certainly not actually Rubocop's fault.

[ghost]

Did you manage to fix that or find a more consistent way to reproduce it? I'm faced with the exact same issue with one of my projects on gitlab. I never required rubocop-rspec anywhere, but I'm still getting this error. Clearing runners' cache doesn't help. And I can't reproduce it on a fresh project. It's bizarre for sure.

[ghost]

The problem has disappeared as soon as I completely removed cache directive from .gitlab-ci.yml. I couldn't determine what exactly led to the error in the first place, but I've already spent too much time on this. Maybe later I will be able trace it down and report a bug to gitlab.
Sorry for polluting rubocop tracker.

[miduddin]

So I was having the same problem, also with GitLab CI. Turns out it was because I put my gems in ./vendor/ directory, which contains another rubocop config file with the offending require statement inside. So I just had to exclude the vendor directory in my project's .rubocop.yml file.

Just in case anyone ever need it, because I spent to much time on this than I'd like to admit 🙈