Protractor E2E test times out when app polls an API at regular intervals

[stickel]

Our app has a poller which makes calls to an API every 3 seconds. When I load a page with has an active instance of the poller Protractor will always time out.

The poller is started when the page loads and uses the Angular $timeout function.

Is there a way to get Protractor to ignore the poller or send a signal to the app to pause the poller momentarily so the E2E test can finish running?

[juliemr]

Not yet - Protractor attempts to avoid syncing problems by waiting for any $timeout calls to finish, so if you have constant calls it will time out. This is probably an issue that others will run into, so I'll call it a bug.

[stickel]

Thanks @juliemr. If you more details on what the app is doing (to reproduce or test a fix) let me know.

[blandinw]

Would love to see it fixed :)
It's been a recurring problem with Angular E2E testing, even with Testacular.

[juliemr]

Will be exploring this issue in the poll branch

The issue is basically - how do I tell if the site is just being slow, or if there's some intentional polling going on and it's OK to resume the E2E test?

First step - give better error messages when timeouts occur.

[juliemr]

For the record, here's a link to the Angular Scenario Runner Issue of this same thing.

[juliemr]

Added a kind of lame temporary fix with 73821fb

You can turn off synchronization using protractor.ignoreSynchronization

But of course, this means that Protractor will NEVER wait for $timeout or $http to finish before fulfilling, which can make tests flaky. Leaving this bug open as I discuss better solutions.

EDIT: See my note below about ignoreSynchronization being an instance variable, not a static / class variable.

[juliemr]

Important comment!

ignoreSynchronization is an instance variable, NOT a static variable of the protractor namespace! I apologize for making this unclear above. So if you have

var ptor = protractor.getInstance()

You will want to set ptor.ignoreSynchronization, NOT protractor.ignoreSynchronization

Sorry for the confusion!

[apankov1]

@juliemr, I'm stuck. I don't know is it ignoreSynchronization not working or my code is wrong:

var util = require('util');

var loginAsExistingUser;
var firstName = 'Andrew';
var lastName = 'Auto1'

loginAsExistingUser = function (ptor) {
    ptor.findElement(protractor.By.css('input[name=email]')).sendKeys("email");
    ptor.findElement(protractor.By.css('input[name=password]')).sendKeys("123");
    ptor.findElement(protractor.By.css('button.green.large')).click();
};

describe('Portal SignIn Page', function() {
    var ptor;


    beforeEach(function() {
        ptor = protractor.getInstance();
        ptor.ignoreSynchronization = true;
        console.log("What's up with ignoreSynchronization?" + ptor.ignoreSynchronization);
        //ptor.driver.manage().timeouts().setScriptTimeout(500);
    }, 20000);


    it ('Check URL after Sign In', function(){
        ptor.get('#/login/');
        ptor.waitForAngular();
        var expectedURL = ptor.baseUrl + 'home';
        loginAsExistingUser(ptor);
        ptor.sleep(5000);
        expect(ptor.getCurrentUrl()).toBe(expectedURL);

    }, 20000);

    it ('Checking username', function(){
       var name = (firstName + lastName);
       ptor.findElement(protractor.By.css('.login-menu-button')).getText().
           then(function(username) {
               expect(username).toEqual(name);
           });
    }, 30000);

});

It looks like ignoreSynchronization gets set correct but test still times out:

Failures:

  1) Portal SignIn Page Checking username
   Message:
     timeout: timed out after 30000 msec waiting for spec to complete
   Stacktrace:
     undefined

Finished in 54.854 seconds
3 tests, 3 assertions, 1 failure

[juliemr]

Hey everyone,

With Angular 1.2rc3, you can now use the $interval service to do your polling! Protractor will not wait for anything registered with $interval! Check out angular/angular.js@2b5ce84 for more details.