Winappdriver: WinAppdriver cannot find Elements in Office Word 2016

[mlehinchenko]

WinAppDriver - 1.1
Microsoft Word 2016
We are developing build in plugin in Office Word 2016.
During version 1803 of Word we had no issues locating elements.
After upgrade to version 1808 - WinAppdriver cannot locate elements.
We had to downgrade but it is very crucial for us to have Word up-to-date.
Attaching an example of simple table prepared by devs in which WinAppDriver cannot locate elements.
Invisible content controls.docx

[hassanuz]

Hi @mlehinchenko,

Can you provide the following information:

What version of Windows?
What does Inspect.exe show up?
Can you try providing a pagesource file for us to see?
Does this issue persist on Word 1809?

Lastly, what attributes (AutomationID, XPath) are you using to identify the elements?

Thanks

[jgilpin]

Similarly, I'm also unable to use XPath to find elements in Outlook. By AutomationId/Name do work.

WinAppDriver - 1.1
Outlook For Office 365 MSO (16.0.11231.20164) 64-bit
Win 10 Enterprise 1803 (17134.590)

I tried Session.FindElementByXpath("/") or "/*" to try and get any element. No results.
Session.PageSource returns XML that matches with Inspect.exe
Also, I've tried by creating the Session with "app"="Root" for a DesktopSession and with "appTopLevelWindow" assigned to MainWindowHandle.ToString("X") after Outlook has opened past it's splash screen.

I tried running WinAppDriver directly from command prompt: winappdriver 127.0.0.1 4723/wd/hub
with admin privs and without.

Any thoughts for me to try?

[timotiusmargo]

@jgilpin.

There is an active issue around Microsoft Outlook having multiple elements sharing runtimeId that WinAppDriver wasn't expecting. We are currently working on a fix that may alleviate your issue. Please stay tune.

[timotiusmargo]

Hi @jgilpin, @mlehinchenko,

WinAppDriver v1.1.1 release properly handles the exception scenario where distinct elements share the same runtimeId. This issue prematurely terminate XPath element search in previous releases. Can you please give it a try to see if this fix the issue you encountered?

[mlehinchenko]

@timotiusmargo Will give it a try and let you know. thanks for your efforts.

[jgilpin]

@timotiusmargo Will check out 1.1.1 today!

[mlehinchenko]

@timotiusmargo no luck
1808 word and WinApp 1.1.1
elements not found
Maybe I need to provide something else to help resolving it?

[jgilpin]

@timotiusmargo 1.1.1 and desktopSession.FindElementByXPath() work for me in Outlook for Office 365 16.0.11328.20140 64-bit.

For others, my desktopSession is instantiated with Appium.Dotnet like this:
protected const string WindowsApplicationDriverUrl = "http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub";...

var appCapabilities = new OpenQA.Selenium.Appium.AppiumOptions(); appCapabilities.AddAdditionalCapability("app", "Root"); appCapabilities.AddAdditionalCapability("deviceName", "WindowsPC"); appCapabilities.AddAdditionalCapability("platformName", "Windows");

desktopSession = new WindowsDriver<WindowsElement>(new Uri(WindowsApplicationDriverUrl), appCapabilities);

[mlehinchenko]

@timotiusmargo hi once again, seems like my bad and it is working. Had to change a little bit strategy of searching but in the end everything seems to be OK. Thanks for help.

[mlehinchenko]

@timotiusmargo Should I close the issue or it will be auto-closed?

[timotiusmargo]

Thanks for the update @mlehinchenko! I'm glad the WinAppDriver v1.1.1 release successfully addressed the issue.