Unable to record on IE

[John Work]

I am unable to record on IE, the option to record a test is disabled and the Configure First link appears next to it. I have followed the insructions mentioned on the page but the option never gets enabled. Have tried it on Chrome and IE 11, I am on Windows 10 and my IE seems to be 64 bit, not sure of 64bit is supported. I have a local version of Screenster running.

I am trying Screenster for the first time, would appreciate any help in this regards.

Thanks.

[Yevhen Badorov]

Hi John,

Thank you for using Screenster!

If you haven't enabled IE support during the installation then please do the following:

1. Go to the folder where Screenster is installed (it's C:\Program Files (x86)\Screenster by default)
2. Find EnableIESupport.bat script and run it with administrator rights
3. Provide existing user name and password that will be used to run IE
4. Try to record/run a test with IE

Let me know if it works for you

Best regards,

Screenster team

[John Work]

Thanks a lot, that worked.

[webdev qa]

The above solved the problem and I'm able to select IE as the browser and start the test. However, the test doesn't actually run. It seems that an IE instances doesn't get instantiated. 

[Yevhen Badorov]

Hi,

IE may have a different default security settings on different Windows versions. Could you please check that "Enable Protected Mode" in IE security settings is disabled for each zone (“Internet”, “Local intranet”, “Trusted sites”, “Restricted sites”) as it mentioned here https://screenster.io/documentation/local-installation/ ?

Please disable it if it's enabled in any zone. Then do the following steps:

1. Stop Screenster service
2. Run "DisableIESupport.bat" script in the Screenster folder (it's C:\Program Files (x86)\Screenster by default) with administrator rights
3. Run "EnableIESupport.bat" script with administrator rights
   

1. Provide existing user name and password that will be used to run IE
   

1. Start Screenster and try to record/run a test with IE (it may take a few minutes for IE to start when you run it for the first time)

Best regards,

Screenster team

[webdev qa]

Thanks. I'm one step further. IE launches and the test is complete. But the baselines are all pitch black. The entire screenshot is black

[Yevhen Badorov]

Seems like the problem is in the user you use to run IE. It must be a common Windows user account, not a service or virtual account.

Try to setup IE support again as I described in the previous message, providing a user account that can be used to log in to your server.

Let me know if it works

Best regards,

Screenster team

[webdev qa]

IE is set up  (from "EnableIESupport.bat") to use the same user as the machine login

[Yevhen Badorov]

Are baselines only have black screenshots or each test run makes black screenshots as well?

Best regards,

Screenster team

[webdev qa]

On both baselines and screenshots of each test. 

[Yevhen Badorov]

When you're disconnecting from the RDP session on your server Windows utilizes graphics resources that IE uses to render the page. That's more likely to be the reason for the black screenshots on IE.

Please try to provide another user to the EnableIESupport.bat script that you are not using to connect via RDP.

Let me know if it works for you

Best regards,

Screenster team

[webdev qa]

I ran the test directly from the VM itself and it worked. However, after running the test after baseline is complete, there were unexpected failures even though the code and environment hadn't changed. Seems to me this is due to the fact that the IE instance is not headless. But if that's the case, the IE tests would always yield unstable and unreliable results. 

[Yevhen Badorov]

As I said before the reason for black screenshots in the IE is that the session for the user that is used to run IE is locked. It happens either when you disconnect from the RDP session or when you lock the user session (it may happen by timeout).

When you run tests directly from the VM you're logged in to the user account that is used to run IE. That's why it works in that case.

The solution to your problem is to provide another user to the EnableIESupport.bat script that you are not using to connect via RDP or to login.

Let me know if it works for you

Best regards,

Screenster team

[webdev qa]

Thanks for the response, but as I mentioned in my last comment, my issue was no longer a black screen. It was tests failing even though the code and UI were not changed and the baselines look identical to the test run. I've encountered this issue with other browsers while using Screenster, when the browsers were not running in headless mode. This is why I suggested the issue maybe related to running the tests in a real browser (vs. headless).