Why Record Test Sessions?

Before diving into the technical details, let’s understand the benefits of recording test sessions:

1. Debugging: Video recordings help identify visual bugs that might not be evident from logs alone.
2. Documentation: Recordings provide a clear documentation of test cases and their outcomes.
3. Collaboration: Sharing recordings with team members or stakeholders facilitates better communication and understanding of issues.
4. Regressions: Video evidence can be used to quickly spot regressions by comparing current test runs with previous ones.

Tools and Prerequisites

To record iOS Appium test sessions, you’ll need the following tools:

1. Appium: The automation framework itself.
2. Xcode: Apple’s integrated development environment for macOS.
3. ffmpeg: A powerful multimedia framework to handle video recording.
4. QuickTime Player: For manual recording (if needed).
5. Node.js: Required for Appium installation.

Ensure you have the following prerequisites:

• A macOS machine with Xcode installed.
• An iOS device or simulator.
• Appium server and client set up on your machine.
• Homebrew (for installing ffmpeg).

Setting Up Video Recording

Step 1: Install ffmpeg

First, install ffmpeg using Homebrew. Open Terminal and run:

brew install ffmpeg

Step 2: Configure Appium

Ensure Appium is installed and configured correctly. If you haven’t installed Appium, use the following command:

npm install -g appium

Start the Appium server with:

appium

Step 3: Start Recording Using ffmpeg

Use ffmpeg to record the iOS simulator screen. Here’s a command to start recording:

ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i "<device_index>" -r 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p -t <duration> output.mp4

• <device_index>: The index of your iOS device. You can find this by running ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i "".
• <duration>: The duration for which you want to record the video (in seconds).

Step 4: Integrate Recording into Appium Test Scripts

You can automate the start and stop of video recording within your Appium test scripts. Below is an example in Java:

import io.appium.java_client.MobileElement;
import io.appium.java_client.ios.IOSDriver;
import io.appium.java_client.remote.MobileCapabilityType;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

import java.net.URL;
import java.io.IOException;

public class AppiumTestWithRecording {
    private static Process ffmpegProcess;

    public static void startRecording() throws IOException {
        String[] command = {"ffmpeg", "-f", "avfoundation", "-i", "<device_index>", "-r", "30", "-pix_fmt", "yuv420p", "-t", "60", "output.mp4"};
        ffmpegProcess = new ProcessBuilder(command).start();
    }

    public static void stopRecording() {
        if (ffmpegProcess != null) {
            ffmpegProcess.destroy();
        }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.PLATFORM_NAME, "iOS");
        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.PLATFORM_VERSION, "14.4");
        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.DEVICE_NAME, "iPhone 12");
        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.APP, "/path/to/your/app.app");
        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.AUTOMATION_NAME, "XCUITest");

        try {
            startRecording();

            IOSDriver<MobileElement> driver = new IOSDriver<>(new URL("http://localhost:4723/wd/hub"), caps);

            // Your test steps here
            MobileElement loginButton = driver.findElementByAccessibilityId("loginButton");
            loginButton.click();

            // Additional test steps...

            driver.quit();
            stopRecording();
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            stopRecording();
        }
    }
}

Best Practices for Video Recording in Tests

1. Start/Stop Recording Programmatically: Automate the start and stop of recordings within your test scripts to ensure consistent capture.
2. Manage Storage: Regularly clean up old recordings to manage storage space effectively.
3. Use Descriptive File Names: Name your recording files with timestamps or test case identifiers for easy identification.
4. Monitor Performance: Ensure that recording does not significantly impact the performance of your test runs. Adjust frame rate and resolution settings if necessary.
5. Review Recordings: Regularly review recordings to identify flaky tests or intermittent issues that logs alone might not reveal.

Conclusion

Video recording of iOS Appium testing sessions is a powerful feature that enhances the debugging, documentation, and collaboration aspects of mobile test automation. By following the steps outlined in this blog, you can set up and integrate video recording into your Appium test scripts, ensuring a more robust and informative testing process. Whether you are capturing visual evidence of test failures or documenting test runs for stakeholders, video recordings are an invaluable addition to your mobile testing toolkit.

1. findElementByAccessibilityId

Example

MobileElement element = driver.findElementByAccessibilityId("loginButton");
element.click();

Why Use It?

• Reliability: Accessibility IDs are less likely to change compared to other attributes.
• Performance: Finding elements by accessibility ID is faster than other methods such as XPath.

2. findElementByClassChain

Example

MobileElement element = driver.findElementByClassChain("**/XCUIElementTypeButton[`label == 'Submit'`]");
element.click();

Why Use It?

• Performance: Class Chain queries are faster than XPath.
• Flexibility: Allows for complex hierarchical queries with a simple syntax.

3. mobile: scroll

Example

Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<>();
params.put("direction", "down");
driver.executeScript("mobile: scroll", params);

Why Use It?

• Native Interaction: Uses native scrolling, which is more reliable and faster than custom swipe actions.
• Precision: Can scroll in specific directions, ensuring the right elements come into view.

4. mobile: swipe

Example

Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<>();
params.put("direction", "left");
driver.executeScript("mobile: swipe", params);

Why Use It?

• Native Gesture: Executes a native swipe gesture, which is more accurate than custom swipe implementations.
• Versatility: Can be used to perform swipe actions in any direction.

5. mobile: tap

Example

Map<String, Object> params = new HashMap<>();
params.put("x", 100);
params.put("y", 200);
driver.executeScript("mobile: tap", params);

Why Use It?

• Precision: Can tap at specific coordinates, useful for custom controls or elements without unique identifiers.
• Flexibility: Can be used on any screen area, ensuring broad applicability.

Conclusion

About WebdriverAgent 

Webdriver agent (WDA)  is an open-source project used for iOS automation testing by Appium. This project is responsible for actions ie. clicking, swiping, tapping. Initially started by Facebook (Github link), the project has been archived, and now the Appium team continues development in a new repo. We strongly recommend both installing WebDriverAgent manually before iOS testing and Appium WDA configuration. That is why Appium will attempt to install its own WDA inside node modules appium-xcuitest-driver/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent. So that, you have to configure WDA (the same steps of manual configuration) inside of Appium before testing.

How to Install WDA

Firstly, download the WDA Release package.

NOTE: Do not clone the repo. Sometimes, pre-release commits cause the unexpected behavior during testing.

After that, firstly we have to configure “Signing & Capabilities” of WebDriverAgentRunner and WebDriverAgentLib targets. Select your Team signing option and build the WebDriverAgentRunner project: Product–>Build For–>Testing.

Building WDA can be stressful and challenging. If you encounter any issues, please contact us, and we will share a blog about it.

Once the project build is finished, install WDA on your device. To install WDA, go to Product–>Perform Action–>Test Without Building option. This will install WDA to your device and start WDA server (default port is: 8100). You will see the “Automation Running” interface on your device screen, indicating that you have successfully configured and installed WDA on your phone. Do not forget to follow the same steps for Appium WDA appium-xcuitest-driver/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent. Now you are ready for Appium iOS testing. 

Happy Testing