Appium & Ruby - Searching by resource ID (Android) is taking too long

Question

I'm fairly new to automated testing and ruby. Basically, I am trying to find elements on a page and click on them. For android, when I run the code to find an element, it can sometimes take really long. Here's an example of the code that runs the find element process:

def find_element(element_name)
elements = nil
result = nil

if(is_iphone)
    element_name.gsub("'", '\\' * 4 + "'")
end

# Check if element_name is present in the lookup dictionary, if present, use value instead.
if(name_lookup(element_name, is_android == true ? "Android" : "iOS")) then
    element_name = name_lookup(element_name, is_android == true ? "Android" : "iOS")
end

# Search by name or exact text.
value = '//*[@name="' + element_name + '"]'
elements = $driver.find_elements(:xpath, value)
if (elements.size() > 0)
result = elements[0]
    return result
end

# Search by label.

label = '//*[@label="' + element_name + '"]'
elements = $driver.find_elements(:xpath, label)
if (elements.size() > 0)
    result = elements[0]
    return result
end


 if(is_android)
    # Search by resource id (Android only).
    elements = $driver.find_elements(:id, element_name)
    if (elements.size() > 0)
     result = elements[0]
        return result
    end
 end

# Search for element containing the text "element_name". Uses xpath.
# iOS searches by name, Android by text.
is_iphone ? (xpath = '//*[contains(@name, "' + element_name + '")]') : (xpath = '//*[contains(@text, "' + element_name + '")]')
elements = $driver.find_elements(:xpath, xpath)
if (elements.size() > 0)
    result = elements[0]
    return result
end

return result
end

Essentially, what's happening is that searching by resource id is required to get past the login screen and doesn't take long whatsoever - in fact it takes milliseconds. However, once I'm past the login screen, searching seems to take forever. Here's an example of the log:

[HTTP] --> POST /wd/hub/session/4ee15b82-fcdb-4558-8e16-446fff65f34f/elements {"using":"id","value":"What's new"}
[MJSONWP] Calling AppiumDriver.findElements() with args: ["id","What's new","4ee15b8...
[debug] [BaseDriver] Waiting up to 0 ms for condition
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] Sending command to android {"cmd":"action","action":"find","params":{"strategy":"id","selector":"What's new","context":"","multiple":true}}
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Got data from client: {"cmd":"action","action":"find","params":{"strategy":"id","selector":"What's new","context":"","multiple":true}}
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Got command of type ACTION
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Got command action: find
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Finding 'What's new' using 'ID' with the contextId: '' multiple: true
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using: UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=(**hidden**):id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements selector:UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=(**hidden**):id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Element[] is null: (0)
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements tmp selector:UiSelector[INSTANCE=0, RESOURCE_ID=(**hidden**):id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using: UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=android:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements selector:UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=android:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Element[] is null: (0)
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements tmp selector:UiSelector[INSTANCE=0, RESOURCE_ID=android:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using: UiSelector[DESCRIPTION=What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements selector:UiSelector[DESCRIPTION=What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Element[] is null: (0)
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements tmp selector:UiSelector[DESCRIPTION=What's new, INSTANCE=0]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Failed to locate element. Clearing Accessibility cache and retrying.
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Finding 'What's new' using 'ID' with the contextId: '' multiple: true
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using: UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=(**hidden)**:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements selector:UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=(**hidden**):id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Element[] is null: (0)
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements tmp selector:UiSelector[INSTANCE=0, RESOURCE_ID=(**hidden**):id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using: UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=android:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements selector:UiSelector[RESOURCE_ID=android:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Element[] is null: (0)
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements tmp selector:UiSelector[INSTANCE=0, RESOURCE_ID=android:id/What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using: UiSelector[DESCRIPTION=What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements selector:UiSelector[DESCRIPTION=What's new]
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Element[] is null: (0)
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] getElements tmp selector:UiSelector[DESCRIPTION=What's new, INSTANCE=0]
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] Received command result from bootstrap
[AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Returning result: {"status":0,"value":[]}
[MJSONWP] Responding to client with driver.findElements() result: []
[HTTP] <-- POST /wd/hub/session/4ee15b82-fcdb-4558-8e16-446fff65f34f/elements 200 92230 ms - 74 

Is there any way to speed this up? Will try to answer questions to clarify this if needed. Thanks!

Answer 1

just thought I'd update this, it seems the slowness was being caused by animation. Turning that off under the developer options sped up tests significantly.

Answer 2

You seem to be using $driver.find_elements which effectively looks through all the elements for your condition and gives a full list of all found results.

It should be faster to call $driver.find_element , which returns first match.