10 Limitations & Challenges in Selenium WebDriver
Selenium is extremely widespread; therefore, there are many of us who automate the utilization of the web interfaces by using this tool consequently reaping the benefits of automation.
In this post, I wish to write about some of the limitations and challenges in Selenium WebDriver we face when implementing automation. And also offer tips on how to overcome them.
If we understand these limitations in Selenium WebDriver we can make our testing process smoother and more efficient.
Check the below video to watch “Challenges and Limitations of Selenium WebDriver”
Don’t miss: Challenges in Automation Testing & Challenges in Software Testing
Most Common Challenges Faced in Selenium Automation
Let’s see the most frequently occuring challenges in Selenium WebDriver and what should you do about them.
#1. We Cannot Test Windows Application
Selenium doesn’t support windows based applications. It supports only web-based applications.
If your project requires testing desktop applications, you will need to consider different tools or frameworks that can interact with the Windows operating system natively, like AutoIt, to fill in the gap.
#2. We Cannot Test Mobile Apps
Using Selenium testing, we can perform testing on any operating system and browser on the desktop but it doesn’t support mobile app testing. But there is a solution for this.
You can use mobile automation tools like Appium or Espresso to handle iOS and Android native, mobile, and hybrid apps using the WebDriver protocol. Appium allows you to test your application on native mobile operating systems. Appium uses WebDriver protocol to automate mobile app testing instead of web applications.
#3. Limited Reporting
You can’t create a decent report using selenium. Selenium’s primary focus is on test automation, but it doesn’t offer built-in comprehensive reporting capabilities. However, there is a solution.
You can generate reports using TestNG or Extent reports. These tools offer enhanced reporting features along with the information like pass/fail count, execution time, errors etc.,
#4. Handling Dynamic Elements
We know that web applications frequently include dynamic content that changes with every user interaction or refresh. Also some of the web elements aren’t immediately visible when you first visit the website. Which creates web elements identification very challenging,.
If an element’s id is changing on every page load then handling these type of elements is bit tricky in the normal way.
We need to handle the dynamic elements with dynamic xpath or dynamic css selectors. Functions like starts-with, contains, ends with, etc., works well to handle dynamic objects.
#5. Handling Page Load
Some of the web pages are user specific. These user-specific pages load different elements depends on the different user. Sometimes some elements appear depends upon the previous action.
Say, If you choose a country from country dropdown then cities related that country will load in the cities dropdown.
In runtime selenium script may not identify the element. We may face errors like elements not found error. To overcome this we need to use explicit waits in the script to give the elements enough time to load and to identify the element.
Implementing Waits in Selenium such as implicit waits, explicit waits, and fluent waits enhances the reliability of tests but adds complexity to scripting and might extend execution times.
#6. Handling Pop-up Windows
Windows-based pops are part of the operating system. It’s sometimes tough to automate a simple pop-up window or alert. Selenium does not support native operating system based dialog windows. It’s beyond selenium’s capabilities.
Selenium requires special handling of these interruptions by employing switchTo commands to transfer focus and perform required actions. This can complicate scripting as it requires maintaining control across different windows and pop-ups, particularly if they arise unpredictably or in succession.
We could use AutoIT to handle the windows based popups.
#7. Handling Captcha
Captcha is designed to differentiate between humans and bots. Captchas present a significant barrier in automation testing.
Handling captcha is another challenge in Selenium testing. There are some third-party tools to automate captcha but still, we cannot achieve 100% results.
We can solve this issue by following below options.
- Completely disable captcha in the test environment
- Make the system to accept a dummy value for captcha in the test environment
#8. Cross-Browser Testing
One of the main reasons people use Selenium is to ensure that web applications work well across different browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and IE. However, different browsers tend to interact with the same web page in different ways which makes cross-browser incompatibility to be quite challenging.
Testing on these browsers alone would not be enough. Testing has to be performed on all the popular versions of these browsers on different OS and resolution ranges out there in the market.
Sometimes, tests that pass on one browser might fail on another. This means testers need to create and maintain test scripts that account for these differences, which can take extra time and effort.
Selenium Grid will help us performing cross-browser testing. But using Selenium Grid we can only perform these tests on the physical machines or browsers.
#9. Scalability
As projects become more complex, the number of test cases can increase significantly. If not well structured, it becomes chaotic to manage and run an extensive suite of test cases using Selenium.
This scalability issue means that without the right setup, tests can take a long time to run, and maintaining the tests can become unwieldy.
Using tools like Selenium Grid can help by distributing tests across multiple machines, making execution faster and more manageable.
#10. False Positives and False Negatives
Sometimes, tests might pass even when there’s a problem (false positives) or fail when everything is working fine (false negatives). These can be frustrating because they undermine the reliability of the test results.
False positives and negatives can occur due to poorly written test scripts, changes in the application that are not updated in the scripts, or timing issues.
Regularly reviewing and updating tests, as well as ensuring they are robust, can mitigate these challenges.
Conclusion: Limitations in Selenium WebDriver
Automation tools have been around for a while now. They’ve helped developers and testers automate repetitive tasks that would otherwise be time-consuming, tedious, or downright boring. But as with all things digital, automation is constantly evolving to meet the needs of today’s software development teams. New challenges are being faced by those who rely on these tools – from limitations in Selenium WebDriver to challenging technical debt created through test automation – but they also provide new opportunities for improvement.
You may like these:
- Selenium Tutorial
- TestNG Tutorial
- Java Tutorial
- Selenium Interview Questions
- TestNG Interview Questions
- Java Interview Questions
- Challenges in Software Testing & How To Overcome Them
- Challenges in Automation Testing & How To Overcome Them
