SwitchTo Alert is very slow

[Rahul]

I am trying to handle "Authentication required" using selenium webdriver.

Selenium - 2.39

Firefox - 25.0.1

OS - Linux

I understand that there are solutions available to handle this dialog (AutoIT etc). But i am looking at the possibility of using java awt Robot class. In fact it works for me if i use this API.

Scenario:

1- Open URL

2- Authentication required window opens

3- Wait till the alert is present (wait.until(ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent())

4- Use Robot to send keys

Step 4 can send correct or incorrect credentials. If incorrect credentials are sent, authentication window pops up again.

All the above works. 

Issue is like this:

- ExpectedConditions.alertIsPresent takes almost 3 minutes to execute. I guess internally it will use driver.switchTo.alert(). I tried using this call as well. But no use - it takes equal amount of time.

I am using WebDriverWait with 30 seconds timeout. So i expect that in case, it is unable to find the alert, it should time out. But it doesnt.

And just to add - When i monitor the test execution - i find that the login window is open but webdriver takes time to switch to it. 

Any suggestions to overcome this?

[Rahul]

Any suggestions pls? I am stuck :(