Ranorex Forum

Ranorex has been very hit and miss with this.

It will sometimes get hung up on trying to find an object, even though the path is correct. If it can't find one object, then most of the time for several of the objects following it will not be found.

What gets even weirder is that moving the mouse around the screen helps Ranorex to find the object when it's hung up and then it runs smoothly again. Of course when running overnight tests, however, there won't be someone to wiggle the mouse around to help Ranorex find the object when it gets stuck.

Hi and welcome here,

Unfortunately, there is not enough information in your post to provide you with reliable help. Could you please answer the following questions?

- what kind of app is tested (dektop, web, mobile,...)
- please tell us more about the technology behind tested app (Java, iOS/Android, WPF, DevExpress, etc.)
- used Ranorex version?
- your OS?
- could you please post a Ranorex snapshot of the page/dialog containing the check&input boxes and example of xpath, which typically fails?
- what error message exactly you are getting? Complete report with failure would be helpful too.

If your tested application is web-based, the most probable reason of your issues is bad timing or dynamical IDs. Ranorex tries to perform next step as soon as the previous one is performed. By default, Ranorex does not wait for completeness of previously performed step! So if you for example in one step load a web page and the next step is click on something, Ranorex does not wait for the web page to be fully loaded! So it's good to specify some "wait for something" actions here or there in your tests. It's not required after each single action. Just at the places, which tends to fail during the execution.

Unfortunately, it's hard to be more specific without seeing your test and your AUT.

It is a desktop application
coded in C#
Ranorex 4.1.5.17134
Windows Server 2012
The hilighted checkbox is one that ranorex often can't find (yet sometimes it does without having to do anything like wiggling the mouse).
The spy path shows that it's able to be found, yet when running the test program, it can't most of the time for specific objects.

Hi,

At first, I would suggest you to try the latest Ranorex 5.4.2. Ranorex 4.1.5 you are using now is way too old and no longer supported. A lot of things were fixed and dramatically improved since 4.1.5.

Unfortunately, without seeing the application (or at least the Ranorex snapshot), your test steps and used xpaths, it's next to impossible to suggest something else. There is just too many unknowns. If Ranorex sometimes finds the elements and sometimes don't, then it's most probably caused by wrong xpaths, or the GUI is not entirelly loaded at a time of execution of failing steps.

I'm having difficulty uploading screenshots.

The GUI is fully loaded and the xpaths are working, so maybe an update will help; however (i think it was version 5.2) a new update would break our software because it's installed on a VM

Hi,

What kind of problem you have with uploading screenshots? Anyway, you can always use cloud services like Dropbox, One drive or Google drive to upload your files and then simply share the link

In your initial post you mentioned 4.1.5, which is really old and no longer supported version of Ranorex. A lot of things were improved since then. However, if you are experiencing problems just on VM, they are most probably caused by timing/not yet loaded elements. These are the most common issue if automating on VMs. You will just have to add some WaitFor Exists/NotExists at critical places in your tests and/or improve the workflow/xpaths. VMs are generally slower than physical machines and things that works great on physical machine may not work quite as fine on VMs. The best you can do is to create your automated tests directly on VMs. This way you can (partially) avoid many surprises when you first run a new test