Hi John,
I'm not sure. It looks like the reference_storage gets set up inside the plugin setup function, which *should* be called when you do the tests --with-answer-testing.
Do you have an example nosetests invocation you are doing that triggers this error?
Also, now that I look at it, it looks like the current uses of the GenericArrayTest in the test suite are not actually being run. Both the SZ answer tests and the photon simulator answer tests don't have a job on fido. I'd suggest you coordinate with Kacper to get that enabled...
So that means the GenericArrayTests are not actually being used anywhere by anyone in the test suite. It's possible they have a bug...
-Nathan