Ranorex Forum

I've only just noticed that Ranorex Spy is no longer detecting the DOM object in my Firefox browser, so Ranorex is failing to run my tests like they used to. Ranorex can detect my browser 'Form' but not the 'Dom'. Looking at the Firefox "What's New" page it seems this build rolled out on September 5th. I've only noticed this problem today however.

Mozilla Firefox 62.0
Ranorex v8.2.1
Ranorex Automation v1.1.5

I've tried re-instrumenting my browser, disabling/re-enabling the Firefox addin, restarting things, etc etc.

I see in this other thread that others have been having problems with Chrome, and that Ranorex v8.3 has changes for web automation. Any experience with Firefox 62 anyone? Should I reinstall Windows, etc? LOL just kidding!! Curious to know if it's a problem worth investigating here, or if others have experienced this too such that there's chuff all I can do about it except moan about software updates breaking other software!

Hi,

I'm using Ranorex 8.2.1 (and 8.3) and it works OK for me with FF 62? If reinstalling Ranorex addon and/or Ranorex did not help, you may try one more thing. Try add the 'firefox' process name to Ranorex whitelist. It helped me with DOM identification problems in Edge (Ranorex 8.3 beta).

Oh, I whitelisted Firefox as soon as I started using Ranorex 8.2 I think it was. So it's definitely not that.

To be clear, Spy can 'see' Firefox as a Form but cannot access the DOM thingy. I normally see the Firefox 'form' along with a 'Dom' entry in my Ranorex Spy. It's the 'Dom' entry that makes things work in my (limited) web experience.

I don't know how to UNinstall the Ranorex Automation Add-on in Firefox. All I can see is Disable/Enable. I may try uninstalling/reinstalled Ranorex next. I know I had to reinstrument my browser when I first installed v8.2, I thought I also had to with v8.2.1 too.

Well, this is rather irritating, to find it's suddenly stopped working at some point. I have absolutely no other clue what to do to fix this.

Hi Stub,

If Ranorex is seeing the elements under a Form and not a Dom, and the Ranorex extension is installed/enabled, then the extension is likely not communicating properly to Ranorex. You can uninstall the Firefox extension via the Ranorex Instrumentation Wizard by unchecking "Install Mozilla Firefox extension..." and clicking next (ensure Firefox is closed before doing this). Once complete, you can run the wizard again, but leave the checkbox checked and it will install it.

If you continue to experience issues, it is likely that the communication pipe between the extension and Ranorex is broken. You can check this by running pipelist.exe (via Command Prompt) while Ranorex and Firefox are opened. You should see something like the below: If the pipe does not show in this list, the only way to reinstall the pipe is to reinstall Ranorex. Once complete, the pipe should be reinstalled, and you should get proper object recognition in Firefox.

1. Close all Ranorex applications and browsers
2. Uninstall Ranorex
3. Restart your machine (important!)
4. Reinstall Ranorex
5. Restart your machine (important!)

I hope this resolves your issue!

Cheers,
Ned

Ned, thanks for that intel. Both tricks are new to me so those are useful to know.

1. Attempting to UNinstall the Firefox instrumentation does not work. If I uncheck that box the Ranorex Instrumentation Wizard suggests that it's queued the add-on for UNinstallation, but nothing obvious occurs. If I then re-start Firefox I find that the add-on remains listed in Tools/Add-ons/Extensions. Rebooting didn't help either.

2. I just ran pipelist64 like you suggested. The only references in the output to "Ranorex" or "Rx" are:
I'll try re-installing Ranorex v8.2.1 later, when I next restart my box.

Hi Stub,

Sorry to hear uninstalling/reinstalling the Firefox extension did not resolve the issue. I just tested the uninstall functionality with the same version of Ranorex and Firefox and could not duplicate. As soon as I uninstalled the extension via the Instrumentation wizard, I opened Firefox, checked my extensions, and confirmed it was closed.

However, since the pipe does not exist, the extension is likely not the issue. I believe once you reinstall Ranorex, the pipe will be reinstalled, and everything will be working again. If you continue to experience issues, a remote session may be the best course of action to try and figure out what is different about your environment. If you would like to go this route, please make a support ticket and reference this forum thread.

Cheers,
Ned

Uninstalled Ranorex, rebooted, re-installed Ranorex, rebooted, re-instrumented Firefox, but it still isn't working in Spy and pipelist still does not list the item you mention, Ned. I think my next step is to uninstall Firefox before I run this up to your support portal. Thanks.

Uninstalled Ranorex v8.2.1.
Rebooted
Installed Ranorex v8.3.3.
Still UNable to instrument Firefox.
Gritted my teeth and UNinstalled and reset Firefox (v67 now).
STILL cannot instrument Firefox with the Ranorex extension. Add-ons Manager/Extensions does not list Ranorex at all.

Oh dear.

So I've finally submitted a Support Portal query on this as I am struggling.

I fixed it!!!

I was talking via email with Renato at Ranorex and he suggested disabling my Firefox extensions. While that didn't work - I still cannot install the Firefox extension from the Ranorex Instrumentation Wizard - it did cause me to look at the Firefox Manage Extension menu of options. And there I saw this menu option entitled, "Install Add-on From File..." I then went and hunted through my Ranorex installation folder and found the actual Firefox extension file here: Combining these two let me finally re-install the Firefox extension. HUZZAH! Things are back and working nominally again.

I have also faced that type off issue when I first time used Ranorex in my firefox browser. It does not run because of my server issue. After that, I uninstalling/reinstalling the Firefox extension did not resolve the issue. I just tested the uninstall functionality with the same version of Ranorex and Firefox and could not duplicate. As soon as I uninstalled the extension via the Instrumentation wizard, I opened Firefox, checked my extensions, and confirmed it was closed. Browse mozilla firefox can't connect server to get more information regarding this.

Hi Stub,

If Ranorex is seeing the elements under a Form and not a Dom, and the Ranorex extension is installed/enabled, then the extension is likely not communicating properly to Ranorex. You can uninstall the Firefox extension via the Ranorex Instrumentation Wizard by unchecking "Install Mozilla Firefox extension..." and clicking next (ensure Firefox is closed before doing this). Once complete, you can run the wizard again, but leave the checkbox checked and it will install it
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