Tips & Tricks

DesiredCapabilities

We can learn about all the capabilities of Android and iOS at https://caps.cloudgrey.io.

Android

• Make sure the ANDROID_HOME environment variable is set with the proper value.

• Make sure the Android device (real device or emulator) is up and running.

• If the connected real device is not recognized, make sure to enable “Developer Options” and "USB Debugging"

• It is recommended to run the command adb kill-server && adb devices once to reset the connection to the android device before starting the Appium session.

• If an Android emulator is used with Fastboot and the emulator isn’t detected by adb devices, try doing a cold boot : Android Studio → Tools → AVD Manager → Actions → Cold Boot Now

• Make sure “Verify Apps” in settings of “Developer Options” is disabled, to allow Appium to install apps without any issues.

• When using uiautomatorviewer, make sure only one android device is connected.

• When uiautomatorviewer is failing to capture the current state of the application, kill the Appium session and retry.

   ps -ef | grep -i appium | awk '{print $2}' | tr -s '\n' ' ' | xargs kill -9
  

iOS

• Make sure Instruments.app is not open.

• When running Appium for the first time, make sure to authorize the use of Instruments. See the UIAutomation Driver doc.

• If you’ve ever run Appium with sudo, you might need to run sudo rm /tmp/instruments_sock and try again as without sudo.

• If Instruments is crashing when running against a physical device (“exited with code 253”), ensure Xcode has downloaded device symbols. Go to Window → Devices, and it should start automatically. This is needed after any iOS version upgrades.

• If you see an iOS Simulator failed to install the application and the path is correct, try restarting the computer.

• Make sure your MacOS keychain that holds the certificate(s) needed for building your app and the WebDriverAgent is unlocked.