appium test findElement button click doesnt work when it should

Question

I'm trying to run a test in eclipse using appium for android. While the test starts and the application launches it throws an error on the first command while trying to press a button. I'm pretty sure that the id for the button is correct since running the same code with selendroid worked. The error at failure trace shows java.lang.NullPointerException. Here is my code:

package thePack;

import static org.junit.Assert.*;
import io.appium.java_client.AppiumDriver;

import java.io.File;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.interactions.Actions;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.CapabilityType;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

public class theTest {


static AppiumDriver driver;

@Before
public void setUp() throws MalformedURLException, InterruptedException, Exception
{
    WebDriver dr;

    File app = new File("C:\\development\\src\\main\\resources\\app.apk");
    DesiredCapabilities capabilities= new DesiredCapabilities();
    capabilities.setCapability(CapabilityType.BROWSER_NAME, "");
    capabilities.setCapability("deviceName", "Vodafone Smart 4G");
    capabilities.setCapability("platformVersion", "4.2.2");
    capabilities.setCapability("platformName", "Android");
    capabilities.setCapability("app", app.getAbsolutePath());       
    capabilities.setCapability("appium-version", "1.2.1");        
    capabilities.setCapability("appPackage", "mypackage.mine.net");       
    capabilities.setCapability("appActivity", "mypackage.mine.net.activities.mainActivity");


    dr = new AppiumDriver(new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub"), capabilities) ;


}

@Test
public void login() throws Exception

{
    Thread.sleep(0500);         
    driver.findElement(By.id("english")).click();
    Thread.sleep(0500);
}

Any ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

the line:

capabilities.setCapability(CapabilityType.BROWSER_NAME, "");

indicates that your test will be performed on the browser, and this should open the browser when start your test. Thus your elements will never be found

Answer 2

Figured out the issue. For me the problem was the Appium version itself. I was running the 1.3.4.1 and using an Android 4.2.2 device. As soon as i switched to version 1.2.4.1 for Appium i had no problems!