Different Behaviour of the Chrome Browser in the Context of Selenium Script Recording and Replaying

To record and replay activities in the web browser I use Selenium, in conjunction with SAP GUI Scripting. But in some cases the browser shows a different behaviour between the recording and the replaying.

Here an example. I start the SAP Support Portal and click on Log On icon. On the same site opens a log on screen.

Here the recorded code in PowerShell:

#-Begin-----------------------------------------------------------------

  $Path = "C:\Program Files\Selenium"

  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\Selenium.WebDriverBackedSelenium.dll")
  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\WebDriver.dll")
  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\WebDriver.Support.dll")

  $Options = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeOptions
  $Options.BinaryLocation = "C:/Program Files/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe"

  $driver = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeDriver($Path, $Options)

  $baseURL = "https://support.sap.com/en/index.html"
  $driver.Navigate().GoToUrl($baseURL); 
  $driver.FindElementByXPath("//section[@id='section_1528579655']/div/div/div/ul/li[3]/div/div/a/span").Click();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_username").Clear();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_username").SendKeys("S0123456789");
  $driver.FindElementById("j_password").Clear();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_password").SendKeys("secret");
  $driver.FindElementById("logOnFormSubmit").Click();

  $driver.Close()
  $driver.Quit()

#-End-------------------------------------------------------------------

But if I replay the script, the Chrome Browser opens a new tab with the logon screen:

In this case the script can’t find the elements username, password etc. So it is necessary to adjust the script.

#-Begin-----------------------------------------------------------------

  $Path = "C:\Program Files\Selenium"

  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\Selenium.WebDriverBackedSelenium.dll")
  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\WebDriver.dll")
  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\WebDriver.Support.dll")

  $Options = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeOptions
  $Options.BinaryLocation = "C:/Program Files/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe"

  $driver = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.Chrome.ChromeDriver($Path, $Options)

  $baseURL = "https://support.sap.com/en/index.html"
  $driver.Navigate().GoToUrl($baseURL); 
  $driver.FindElementByXPath("//section[@id='section_1528579655']/div/div/div/ul/li[3]/div/div/a/span").Click();

  $hWin = $driver.WindowHandles[1]
  $driver.SwitchTo().Window($hWin)

  $driver.FindElementById("j_username").Clear();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_username").SendKeys("S0123456789");
  $driver.FindElementById("j_password").Clear();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_password").SendKeys("secret");
  $driver.FindElementById("logOnFormSubmit").Click();

  $driver.Close()
  $driver.Quit()

#-End-------------------------------------------------------------------

I add code to switch to the next tab, now the script works perfect.

If you replay this kind of scripts on the first time, after a recording, it seems good to watch the automated activities carefully. And if the browser opens a new tab at a point where there was none at the recording, it is necessary to add code to switch to the tab.

2017/08/16: Here an example with PhantomJS

#-Begin-----------------------------------------------------------------

  $Path = "C:\Program Files\Selenium";

  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\Selenium.WebDriverBackedSelenium.dll");
  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\WebDriver.dll");
  [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom($Path + "\dotNET\WebDriver.Support.dll");

  $Options = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.PhantomJS.PhantomJSOptions;

  $driver = New-Object OpenQA.Selenium.PhantomJS.PhantomJSDriver($Path, $Options);

  $baseURL = "https://support.sap.com/en/index.html";
  $driver.Navigate().GoToUrl($baseURL); 
  $driver.FindElementById("headerLoginLink").Click(); 
  $driver.SwitchTo().Frame("https://support.sap.com/bin/fiji/es/login.support.html?_=nc#https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.sap.com%2Fen%2Findex.html");
  $driver.FindElementById("j_username").Clear();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_username").SendKeys("S0123456789");
  $driver.FindElementById("j_password").Clear();
  $driver.FindElementById("j_password").SendKeys("secret");
  $driver.FindElementById("logOnFormSubmit").Click();

  $SnapShot = $driver.GetScreenshot();
  $SnapShot.SaveAsFile($Path + "\Result.jpg", [OpenQA.Selenium.ScreenshotImageFormat]::Jpeg);

  $driver.Close();
  $driver.Quit();

#-End-------------------------------------------------------------------