Appium Tizen TV Driver

Tizen TV Driver for Appium

The Appium Tizen TV Driver is a test automation tool for Samsung Tizen TV devices. It works with Tizen apps that have been developed using the web-style framework (not the "native" C++-based apps). This driver is designed to be used with Appium; on its own it doesn't do anything.

Installation

If you're using the standard Appium CLI tool to manage drivers:

1appium driver install --source=npm appium-tizen-tv-driver

(Or if you're using NPM to manage dependencies, just include the appium-tizen-tv-driver npm package in your package.json)

Additional Requirements

• Tizen Studio is required to use this driver. Once it's installed, you'll need to export the TIZEN_HOME environment variable that the driver relies on. It's also convenient to add some of the studio tools to your path so you can run them as well:

  1export TIZEN_HOME=/path/to/your/tizen-studio
  2export PATH=${PATH}:${TIZEN_HOME}/tools:${TIZEN_HOME}/tools/ide/bin

• The TV needs to be put into developer mode.

• The TV must be connected to the Appium host via sdb (run sdb connect <tv-ip>). You can always verify that the TV is connected before running a test by running sdb devices.

• The app you want to test needs to be a correctly-signed debug version of your app.

• The TV needs to be on the same local network as the Appium server.

• Before running your first session, you should run appium driver run tizentv pair-remote to initiate a remote pairing session with the TV. When you accept the remote pairing, a pairing token will be printed to the command line. Use this token as the content of the appium:rcToken capability to allow Appium remote control access. The pair-remote script takes one required argument: --host, which should refer to the IP of the TV. For example:

  1appium driver run tizentv pair-remote --host 10.192.45.12

  • Note: The pairing popup could appear a couple of times. Please allow all of them.
  • Note: The command could print Invalid WebSocket frame: invalid status code 1005 error and fail without showing any popups. One possible reason here is this pairing request was denied in the past. Please check if such a "denied" item exists in the device list below. Then, please re-run the pair-remote command.
    • Go to Settings -> General -> External Device Manager -> Device Connect Manager -> Device List and delete the "denied" item. (This device list place could depend on TV kinds)

Known limitations

• WebKit based Tizen TV models (Tizen 2.4 (2016) and lower versions) do not support chromedriver based automation. Please use 'appium:rcMode':'remote'. Then, the session will work as rcOnly mode.
  • Reference: Web Engine Specifications
• Tizen TV models that have Chrome 57 and lower versions do not support chormedriver based automation because chromedriver for such old versions requires chrome binary. debuggerAddress only mode does not work. Please use 'appium:rcMode':'remote' and rcOnly mode such devices.
  • cannot connect to chrome at 127.0.0.1:35713 from session not created exception: Chrome version must be >= 58.0.3029.0

Capabilities

Capability	Description
platformName	[Required] Must be TizenTV
appium:automationName	[Required] Must be TizenTV
appium:deviceName	[Required] This capability can technically be any string, but if you set it to <device-host>:<sdb-port>, then you don't need to include the appium:udid or appium:deviceAddress capabilities. E.g.: 127.0.0.1:26101
appium:showChromedriverLog	If set to true then all the output from chromedriver binary will be forwarded to the Appium server log. false by default.
appium:chromedriverExecutable	[Required*] Most Tizen TVs run a very old version of Chrome. Because this driver uses Chromedriver under the hood, you'll need to have a very old version of Chromedriver handy that works with the version of Chrome backing the apps on your TV. In our testing, we've found Chromedriver 2.36 to work with most TVs. You need to tell the driver where you've installed this version of Chromedriver using the appium:chromedriverExecutable capability, passing in an absolute path to the Chromedriver binary.
appium:chromedriverExecutableDir	[Required*] Full path to the folder where chromedriver executables are located. This folder is used then to store the downloaded chromedriver executables if automatic download is enabled with chromedriver_autodownload security flag. Please read Automatic Discovery of Compatible Chromedriver in appium-uiautomator2-driver for more details. If the chrome version on the TV is lower than v63 major version, the using chrome version will be Chrome/58.0.3029.0 forcefully to use chromedriver 2.31 for the session. Lower chromedriver could raise cannot find Chrome binary error, which prevent starting chromedriver session.
appium:deviceAddress	The IP address on the local network of the TV you want to automate. This capability is required if the equivalent information is not found in appium:deviceName
appium:udid	The device ID as returned by sdb devices. This capability is required if the equivalent information is not found in appium:deviceName
appium:app	An absolute path to your .wgt app file, if you want Appium to install the app. It could also be an URL to a remote location.
appium:appPackage	The app package ID, if you want Appium to use an app already on the TV.
appium:rcMode	One of js or remote. If js, the driver will use Chromedriver to mimic remote control keypresses. If remote, the driver will use a websocket-based input device API. If remote, see the appium:rcToken capability below. Defaults to js.
appium:rcToken	Set to the same value as the token printed out when running the pair-remote driver script. If omitted and appium:rcMode is remote, the driver will attempt to get a token from the the TIZEN_REMOTE_TOKEN environment variable, on-disk cache, or fetched automatically from the device and persisted to cache for future sessions (this will take at least 30s).
appium:resetRcToken	If appium:rcMode is remote, set this to true to force the driver to fetch a new token from the device. This is useful if your token is no longer valid and you do not wish to use the pair-remote driver script.
appium:rcOnly	If this is set to true, then no Chromedriver connection will be established, and only remote control commands will be available (no finding elements, getting source, etc...). This mode is useful if you have a non-web-based app and simply want to automate fire-and-forget remote control commands
appium:useOpenDebugPort	If you have already launched an app on the TV in debug mode, and you know its remote debugging port, you can have Appium simply attach to it by sending in the port as a number as the value of this capability. This is mostly useful for driver development.
appium:isDeviceApiSsl	Set it to true if you want Appium to connect to the device over SSL.
appium:rcDebugLog	Set to true to enable debug logs from the interaction with the device's remote control API.
appium:rcKeypressCooldown	Cooldown (in milliseconds) after each keypress via remote. Only applies if appium:rcMode is remote. Increase this number if keypress commands complete before the app under test reflects the keypress. Defaults to 750 ms.
appium:noReset	If the driver resets the local data of the application under test. It calls window.localStorage.clear() and window.location.reload() to clear the local data and reload the content. Defaults to true.
appium:powerCyclePostUrl	If the driver cycling the device power with appium:fullReset capability. Both capabilities are set, the session creation will try to cycle the device power.
appium:sendKeysStrategy	If the driver uses the device's remote control API to send keys or proxies to the running chromedriver session. proxy or rc is available. Please read Set Value (Send Keys) section below for more details. Default to undefined. Please configure it explicitly.
appium:sdbExecTimeout	Maximum number of milliseconds to wait until a single sdb/tizen command is executed. 90000ms by default
appium:sdbExecRetryCount	Maximum number of retries to run sdb/tizen command. Each command attempt has appium:sdbExecTimeout timeout. For example, if appium:sdbExecTimeout was 120000ms and this capability was 2, the entire max timeout to wait for a sdb/tizen command will be 240000ms. You will get a command timeout error then. Defaults to 3.

(*) appium:chromedriverExecutable or appium:chromedriverExecutableDir are required. The chromedriver autodwonload works only when appium:chromedriverExecutableDir is provided. If both capabilities are given, appium:chromedriverExecutableDir take priority.

Commands

Create Session

Create a session.

• POST /session

This is a standard WebDriver protocol command that allows you to send in a set of capabilities to start an automation session on your app.

Delete Session

End a session.

• DELETE /session/:sessionId

End a session, close the app and make the driver ready for new sessions.

Get current context

Return the current context name.

• GET /session/:sessionId/context

Return NATIVE_APP context name.

Set Value (Send Keys)

Send keys to an input element.

• POST /session/:sessionId/element/:elementId/value

Note that the behaviour of this command depends on the appium:sendKeysStrategy capability and its value. The default value of this capability is proxy, and in this mode, calling this command will proxy the command via Chromedriver.

If you set the value of this capability to rc, the text will instead be sent over the remote control protocol implemented by Samsung. In this mode, the actual element ID used is immaterial; the remote has no knowledge of "elements". It merely sends text into the active input field. You are responsible for making sure an input field is active and that the keyboard is on screen. This command will take care of entering the text and closing the keyboard. What happens next is up to your application logic.

Press Key

Press a remote key on the TV.

• POST /session/:sessionId/execute

Arguments

• script: tizen: pressKey
• key: (see below)

The keycodes should be the string taken from values of the Keys object exported by the @headspinio/tizen-remote package.

Refer to your Appium client library for how to use this method.

Long Press Key

"Long press" a remote key on the TV.

• POST /session/:sessionId/execute

Arguments

• script: tizen: longPressKey
• key: (see below)
• duration: {number} in milliseconds

The keycodes should be the string taken from values of the Keys object exported by the @headspinio/tizen-remote package.

Refer to your Appium client library for how to use this method.

Get the list of installed applications

The list of installed applications. Old device models (e.g. Year 2016) may always return an empty list as not supported. Each item has appName and appPackage.

• POST /session/:sessionId/execute

Arguments

• script: tizen: listApps

Activate the package name

Send a launch command with the given package name to the device under test. This package name is the same as what you give as appium:appPackage. Note that launching appPackage with debug mode requires appPackage has been terminated.

• POST /session/:sessionId/execute

Arguments

• script: tizen: activateApp
• appPackage: application package name to launch
• debug: if activating the app with 'debug' mode. It launches the appPackage with sdb -s <device> shell 0 debug <appPackage> so that the session can automate it via chromedriver. The appPackage must be terminated before the launch. Existing chromedriver session will be terminated to keep one chormedriver session.

[!NOTE] The launching with debug mode could clear the local data as the sdb command behavior. i.e. If you store some data in the localStorage like driver.execute_script "localStorage.setItem('cat', 'dog');", driver.execute_script "return localStorage.getItem('cat');" will return nil instead of dog after the activateApp with debug option restart. Please consider handling the localStorage directly without debug launching option.

Example

1# Ruby
2driver.execute_script "tizen: activateApp", {appPackage: "biF5E2SN9M.AppiumHelper"}
3driver.execute_script "tizen: activateApp", {appPackage: "biF5E2SN9M.AppiumHelper", debug: true}

Terminate the package id

Send a kill command with the given package id to the device under test. This package id is not the entire appPackage. It could be the same as the appPackage, but it also could be different. Please check the pkgId value in your application under test package. e.g. org.tizen.browser works both appPackage and pkgId, but 9Ur5IzDKqV.TizenYouTube works as appPackage but the 9Ur5IzDKqV part is pkgId used in this command.

• POST /session/:sessionId/execute

Arguments

• script: tizen: terminateApp
• pkgId: package id to terminate

Example

1# Ruby
2driver.execute_script "tizen: terminateApp", {pkgId: "biF5E2SN9M"}

Clear the local data of the application under test

Calls window.localStorage.clear() and window.location.reload() methods to clear the local data and reload the content of the application under test to reset it.

• POST /session/:sessionId/execute

Arguments

• script: tizen: clearApp

Example

1# Ruby
2driver.execute_script "tizen: clearApp"

Proxied Commands

Once a session is started, all commands other than the ones mentioned above are proxied to Chromedriver. This means you have access to the entire suite of WebDriver spec commands available through Chromedriver. Refer to the Chromedriver documentation and Selenium client documentation for your language to see what's available.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! To work on the driver locally, clone the repo and run npm install. Make your changes, then run npm run build to transpile them. You can install the driver using Appium's driver CLI to install from your local development path. You can also just watch for changes in the code and rebuild when anything does change:

1npm run watch

Troubleshooting

• The application under test did not start; sdb -s <device> shell 0 debug <package id>' exited with code 1
  • Please make sure the application under test is debuggable
• The application under test keeps raising an error succh as Could not launch the null application (as part of the error message)
  • Please specify appium:app capability. Then usually tizentv driver uninstalls the app before installing the app to terminate the running app process forcefully.
  • Perhaps the TV device internal is weird state to launch the app process.
• App uninstallation could fail silently. It means while tizen/shell command did not end with exit code non-zero, the command failed to uninstall the app.
  • Please manually uninstall the application if you'd like to uninstall completely.
  • Report this issue in bug report
• data-focused="" property on an element/the page source hierarchy would indicate the element is currently haveing "focus"
  • It needs chromedriver automation
• A new permission popup appears if the same name of token generated by wscat -n -c wss://<device host>:8002/api/v2/channels/samsung.remote.control?name=<base 64 encoded string> establishes more than two sessions
  • Then, the later sessions will get the popup while the "name" has already been granted permission. Please make sure one TV has one WebSocket connection for the remote controller mode with the same name (host in this driver case)

Credits

• This driver is developed by HeadSpin and other open source contributors.
• It is inspired by and relies on previous work done by @sharkyStudy. Thank you!