Repository items not longer found after Update to Studio 10.2.0

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woha
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:56 pm

Repository items not longer found after Update to Studio 10.2.0

Post by woha » Wed Aug 03, 2022 11:31 am

We use Windows C-Sharp (C# cannot be searched in this Forum, autsch) applications to get tested by Ranorex.
But after upgrade from version 10.0.0 to 10.2.0 (also 10.2.2 checked) half of the repository items are not found anymore.
My question: are there more people had this problem? How you solved this?

Some more details:
- The tested EXE was fully ok with Version 10.0.0 before.
- Any other conditions were the same, only RanorexStudio was updated.
- Done many researches and it seams we have 2 groups of problems
1. the xpath of elements changed in hierarchy. e.g. an element on a tab is not longer found on the tab itself. it is now found on a unvisible element on the same hierarchy of the tabs :cry: . The EXE was not changed, so why the item is now there? Totally unhelpfull
2. more robust xpathes using extremly more time do identify an element. You have that slider in the settings (speed vs robust). While TRACK a fresh element with robust-condition you have e.g. up to 10-20 seconds to find. Doing it with "speed" you are on a max 1 second trail. So no wounder if the test engineeres moveing the slider to more speed if they have iterations that multiply the amount of time. puhh. Now you hear from the support to think about making the pathes more robust (*rofl*).
- We contacted the support: Its "nice" to hear that they can nothing do for you. Its normal to change something in versions.
OK - but ruin the test managers time is not helpfull and no good planning by the developers. If you make hard changes you need a fallback. Everyone (just me) expectes a fallback to the old algorythmus. But not Ranorex! Here we are: Not able to test our product - insteed we have to check over 1.000 Elements the next weeks!!!! Who will pay for this? We can not accept this. So how would you feel if someone made your entire repository collection unusable?

BTW: Some more things came out while using 10.2.0:
- The SPY is now much more slower identyfing selected xpathes in a c-sharp structure. Addional extreamly more slower if i switched in the SETTINGS > Tab: Advanced > RanorexXpath settings - Expert settings to the new Xpath generation mode "Robust". After checking whats new here i am very very frustrated: for me it changes nothing - expect the Spy takes up to 1 minute wait time to let you know if an element exists or not. Thats terrible. I switched back to the old default of code generation.
- Some items in the SPY you have to click 3-4 times in the hierarchy requesting "update path".

Finally, the new Ranorex Studio Verison 10.2. x will destroy your work already done, costs much time to fix this and Ranorex is not willing/capable to help you because they missed to include a fallback in the xpath segment.

We next write a Letter to the Ranorex board and hear what they are thinking. What comes out here will affect our decision whether we will discontinue Ranorex in the Group.

mrt
Posts: 257
Joined: Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:31 am

Re: Repository items not longer found after Update to Studio 10.2.0

Post by mrt » Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:34 am

I haven't faced these issues, although this is really hard to analyze without having your working and your broken solution as well as your AUT available.

At first I would try to fully uninstall and reinstall Ranorex.
Then create a new solution without changing anything in Solution/Studio default settings.
Then open the old solution in a second Studio side by side and copy over a few of the repository items (simply Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V) to the new repository, and see if the issue still persists.

For the XPath, of course "more robust" means nothing more than using more wildcards instead of specifying each hierarchy element precisely.
The more details you put into RXpath, the faster it is recognized, but the less robust it is.

If you specify each element with several attributes then the slightes code change breaks the RXpath.
If you just use e.g "//myelement" as RXPath, it takes much longer to recognize because it needs to walk over the full hierarchy tree,
but it will survive almost all code changes (except the element is renamed).

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woha
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Mar 06, 2019 12:56 pm

Re: Repository items not longer found after Update to Studio 10.2.0

Post by woha » Thu Aug 11, 2022 11:03 am

Thanks for replying to me "mrt":
mrt wrote:
Thu Aug 04, 2022 9:34 am
At first I would try to fully uninstall and reinstall Ranorex.
Then create a new solution without changing anything in Solution/Studio default settings.
Then open the old solution in a second Studio side by side and copy over a few of the repository items (simply Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V) to the new repository, and see if the issue still persists.
==> we already done this. Reinstall. Transfering things. The new 10.2. Studio will not find any repository items thoug under 9.2. all is fine.
==> We found out, that the spy find the missing Elements on other positions in the hirachy. yes the same EXE!!!
==> Also some "container" Elements with a "@caption='' " are not found any longer - not anywhere else in hirachy.


For the XPath, of course "more robust" means nothing more than using more wildcards instead of specifying each hierarchy element precisely.
The more details you put into RXpath, the faster it is recognized, but the less robust it is.
If you specify each element with several attributes then the slightes code change breaks the RXpath.
If you just use e.g "//myelement" as RXPath, it takes much longer to recognize because it needs to walk over the full hierarchy tree,
but it will survive almost all code changes (except the element is renamed).

==> Addionally we have a time problem in Ranorex for c#. You can check this yourself. The difference between "speed" and "robust" can mean values between 1 to 10 seconds. Yes 10 times more! Here we have many iterations running up to 4 hours. So we delivered hardcopys of the reports to the support showing a time request of 122% in studio 10.2.2. Thats not acceptble!! Partionally funny: they suggest us first to make all repository items more robust. But we have to deploy a daily version of our tests. Forget it.
We will see, if the escalation to the development team brings something.