What is Selenium and key challenges of Selenium test automation

Software testers can create and run automated test scripts with the aid of Selenium, a well-liked open-source test automation framework. In several of our previous blogs, we have discussed the structure, problems, and other parts of what Selenium is. Testers can develop test scripts in common programming languages such as Ruby, Node JS, Python, Java, C#, PHP, and others with the help of Selenium's interface. This blog post will discuss Selenium automation testing issues and solutions.

What is Selenium in software testing?

Businesses may verify web applications for functionality and cross-browser compatibility with Selenium testing. The Selenium framework is a collection of software tools that each address different enterprise-specific QA testing requirements for their distinct technological implementations.

With Selenium, testers may create test scripts in their favorite programming language and have them run on a browser instance on any device they're targeting, whether a PC, tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device. By doing this, testing teams can avoid wasting numerous hours of testing time that would otherwise be required to manually validate each module of an application in a real-world run-time setting outside of development. 

It could take days or weeks to fully verify the end-to-end quality of a large enterprise application without Selenium automation testing.

Important Difficulties with Selenium Automation

Enterprises frequently find themselves in difficult situations when using Selenium. Many test automation issues stem from inadequate strategic planning. One major difficulty is not knowing how to use the many functions of the test automation tool based on the particulars of business applications.

Let's examine some important Selenium automation challenges.

1. Managing the dynamic aspects and content of websites.

These days, most websites just maintain a single-page version and dynamically load different hidden content from servers into the page as needed. When utilizing Selenium for scripts, this can present difficulties for testers. Modern websites created with cutting-edge technology include dynamic material that updates constantly, and internationally accessible websites could have geolocation-based content. (For instance, Amazon) With Selenium, automating these kinds of online applications becomes difficult because the locators that are accessible might not be able to communicate with the web elements. Likewise, AJAX-based websites could take a while to load, which could be the cause of test script failure.

2. Examining for Mobile OS Frameworks

Mobile web applications and native mobile applications cannot be tested with Selenium. Testing web apps and mobile apps for iOS and Android can also be done with another popular open-source framework called "Appium," however in order to test a single online application in the same desktop and mobile browser, testers need to write separate drivers and scripts.

3. Cross-browser testing

It is not necessary to access a website via Chrome or any other browser. It could be really difficult to automate testing on every browser on the market because there are so many of them. It is still necessary to closely examine whether the program being tested is entirely compatible with the majority of browsers, including Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Internet Explorer. It is still necessary to conduct extensive testing on popular versions of these browsers as well as on a variety of operating systems and screen resolutions when testing on such commonly used browsers. Although Selenium Grid remains functional, its assistance would be limited to cross-browser testing on actual computers or browsers.

4. Pop-up/ Alert Handling

Pop-ups such as "Allow/Decline microphone access," "Allow/Decline camera access," and so forth are often browser-level alerts that behave differently between browsers. Chrome Options are available for use with the Chrome browser. For the Firefox browser, a similar option is Firefox Options/Firefox Profile.

Web-based letters like "Do you want to leave the site?" and OS-level pop-ups are examples of additional popups and alerts that may appear when engaging with an online application. The Selenium predefined class "Alerts," which offers several methods like accept() and dismiss(), can be used to manage web-based notifications. Selenium locators are unable to handle pop-ups at the OS level.

5. Managing OTP and Captcha requests

Because the values of OTP and Captcha change with every transaction, including new account registration and payment gateway transactions, it is impossible to predict their values. This gets difficult for testers who use automation. This further demonstrates that manual testing cannot be avoided and that an application cannot be entirely automated.

6. Scalability Issues

The scope and coverage of the testing landscape expand along with the application's use and feature enhancements. Although Selenium enables testers to run test builds sequentially across various environments, it could lose its effectiveness as an application grows in size. Automation testing with selenium works best when testers are able to cover as many situations as feasible with a greater number of runs. Although Selenium WebDriver offers a method for doing tests in a sequential fashion, cross-browser testing can be done more successfully with other methods. Therefore, problems with scalability may eventually affect the overall quality of the test.

In summary

The demand for such skills is strong, despite the fact that eliminating these difficulties with the appropriate approach, strategic setups, and tweaks may seem simple. Even though the Selenium framework has a long range of useful capabilities, resolving Selenium automation testing downsides can be time- and labor-consuming. Although Selenium has an impressive feature set, developing automated tests can still provide obstacles and constraints for developers.