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      AutoHeal - Self Healing Capabilities
      • 21 Mar 2025
      • 2 Minutes to read
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      AutoHeal - Self Healing Capabilities

      • Updated on 21 Mar 2025
      • 2 Minutes to read
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      Article summary

      Overview

      The AutoHeal Capability is a new feature that automatically repairs broken locators in your test automation framework. When enabled, it helps maintain test stability by automatically healing element locators that might break due to locator updates or changes 

      Key Features

      • Automatic healing of broken locators

      • It is supported for automation scripts written for both Android and iOS 

      Prerequisites 

      • User must be registered on the Pcloudy platform

      • User must have an active Automation plan

      What Can AutoHeal Do?

      • AutoHeal will be able to fix broken locators when their attributes or properties have changed. This repair process has a high success rate (90-95% accuracy).

      • Our AutoHeal system supports all common locators. Some examples include - ID, XPath, CSS Selector, Accessibility ID, Class Name, Name, Text and Tag Name.

      Important Note - For healing to work properly, the target element must exist on the page before the system attempts to heal the locator. 

      AutoHeal Restrictions

      • When trying to locate completely new UI components that didn't exist before.

      • When the existing UI component has undergone significant visual or structural changes.

      • When a UI component undergoes significant structural or visual changes after its locator has been stored, the AutoHeal system will not be able to repair the stored locator.

        Recommendation - Only enable auto-healing when necessary, such as for tests that run against frequently changing builds or during transitional periods after UI updates. 

      Configuration Steps

      Note

      While you can use any programming language, the following examples use Java.

      1. Enable AutoHeal Capability - Add the following capability to your driver initialization

      DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities(); 
capabilities.setCapability("autoheal", true); 

      1. Implement Heal Locator - Add the following code to retrieve healed locators: 

        public String getHealedLocator(String originalLocator) { 
    Map<String, String> params = new HashMap<>(); 
    params.put("locator", originalLocator); 
    return (String) driver.executeScript("mobile:heal:locator", params); 
} 

      2. Use in Test Scripts

        Note - Implement the healing functionality to return the healed/original locator.

        Map<String, String> params2 = new HashMap<>(); 
params2.put("locator", "input_password"); 
System.out.println("Locator healed: " + driver.executeScript("mobile:heal:locator", params2));

      Troubleshooting

      1. Case 1 - Healing Process Not Triggered 

        1. Verify that the AutoHeal capability is set to true

        2. Check Appium server logs 

        3. Ensure proper exception handling 

          Note - In the first run, the system stores all elements, so all test cases in the script must pass.

      1. Case 2 - iOS Device Not Recognized

        1. Verify iOS device UDID

        2. Check Xcode configuration

        3. Validate WebDriverAgent setup

      Best Practices

      • Always verify that the AutoHeal capability is properly configured

      • Maintain proper error handling in your test scripts 

      • Keep your Appium and dependencies up to date 

      • Document any custom locator strategies 

      • Regularly monitor healing success rates 

        Note

        • The system requires a successful first run to store element information

        • Test cases should be stable before implementing AutoHeal

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