Remote Debugging using chrome

In the previous chapter we saw UIAutomatorviewer and how to use that tool to look for elements and locators.

However, when you are working on a hybrid application (developed on a platform like Phonegap ), we can use remote debugging.

To use Remote debugging, we need to have:

• Chrome (version 69) or later installed on your machine

• Android Device

  • Should be running Android 4.4+

  • USB Debugging enabled

• USB cable

Once the basic things are in place, connect your device to machine using USB cable. Launch Chrome and open a tab with target "chrome://inspect". This is how it would look like.

If you notice your phone, you would have got an alert saying "Allow USB Debugging".

Once you click OK, your device would get showed up in browser tab. Below is how it would show up:

Once you click on inspect, you can see the locators as you have always done in web for Selenium.

You can also use Screen casting option by clicking the Screencast icon in the upper right corner of your remote debugging DevTools window.

This method of finding locator is faster than using UIAutomatorviewer and would be highly recommended.

If the phone is NOT getting recognised while performing tests. Perform below commands to get started with the device

Try killing adb adb kill-server then disable usb debugging and then start adb by adb start-server then enable usb debugging and plug phone again and huh don't let phone sleep between process