Test-failure: INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_ON_CROSS_REFERENCE_ENTITY

Question

I have a APEX Test Method that has started to throw exceptions (don't know if this is related to a new release) but I'm not sure what to do to avoid these exceptions

    // Using this 'user' to avoid Mixed DML Errors
    public static User thisUser = [SELECT Id FROM User WHERE Id = :UserInfo.getUserId()];

    static testMethod void testInit() {

        Account a = TestUtils.createAccount('Individual Account', 5, false);
        Account s = TestUtils.createAccount('Org Account', 5, false);
        insert new List<Account> { a, s };

        Contact staff1 = TestUtils.createContact('Staff 1', s.Id, false);
        insert(staff1); 

        // Create Portal User for Contact
        User portalUser = TestUtils.createPortalUser(staff1.LastName, staff1.Email + String.valueOf(Math.random()) + String.valueOf(Math.random()), 'alias', staff1.Id, true, false);

        // Getting an error 'User Must have Role', adding a Role here seems to solve this problem
        portalUser.UserRoleId = [select Id from UserRole where PortalType = 'Partner' limit 1].id;

        // Avoid MIXED_DML_EXCEPTION 
        System.runAs(thisUser){
            insert portalUser;
        }       

        System.runAs(portalUser) {
            Test.startTest();
            Test.setCurrentPage(Page.SchoolFeeWaivers);

            System.debug('testInit');

            // Attempting to insert Contact here causes: INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_ON_CROSS_REFERENCE_ENTITY on `insert`          
            Contact parentA = TestUtils.createContact('Parent A', a.Id, true);

        // ...

So why am I getting an INSUFFICIENT_ACCESS_ON_CROSS_REFERENCE_ENTITY? I'm assuming it has to do with the fact that Account a doesn't have the same owner as the Contact?

If I remove the System.runAs(portalUser) call the code runs fine?

Answer 1

The answers to this question seem to indicate that I should create the Account with a user who has a role to avoid the "User Must have Role", but in this case I'm specifically not creating the user I'm going to runAs to avoid MIXED_DML_EXCEPTIONS?

Which led me check my user's profile, which didn't have a ROLE! As a result, when I selected a role for my account, (using the current user context to setup the Account), the error is resolved and the test runs as expected.