Migrating from Appium 1.x to Appium 2.0 and running app tests

Author: Mao TAKAHASHI

Published in: June 1, 2023

I usually use Appium to create automated tests, and Appium's github shows that Appium 2.0 is a beta version, but the following is noted.

appium

appium ⋅ 5 days ago

Appium core team does not maintain Appium 1.x anymore since the 1st of January 2022. All recent versions of officially supported platform drivers are not compatible to Appium 1.x anymore, and require Appium 2 to run. Please read the migration guide from 1.x to 2.0 to manage the Appium server.

I can still run the app test with Appium 1.x, but I will describe how to run the test after updating from Appium 1.x to Appium 2.0 without significant impact.

Environment

Environment	Version
OS	macOS Ventura 13.4
Programing language	Java 17
Test framework	JUnit 5.8.1
Appium	1.22.3 to 2.0.0-beta.71
Node	v16.15.1
npm	9.6.6
Xcode	14.3
iOS	16.3
io.appium:java-client	8.5.0

Migration Methods

The migration method to Appium 2.0 is also described in detail in the official documentation. Basically, you can follow the changes here.

Migrating from Appium 1.x to Appium 2.x - Appium Documentation

The Appium automation project documentation

appium.io

The actual command I operated is as follows.

** I had previously thought of trying a flutter-driver, which I had already installed. Because of this, some parts of the procedure did not work as expected.

appium-flutter-driver

appium ⋅ 23 days ago

# upgrade to appium2.0
$ npm install -g appium@next

# install uiautomator2(for android) and xcuitest(for ios)
$ npm install --global appium --drivers=xcuitest,uiautomator2

# check installed driver
$ appium driver list --installed
✔ Listing installed drivers
- flutter@1.12.0 [installed (npm)]
- xcuitest@4.30.1 [installed (npm)]
- uiautomator2@2.25.1 [installed (npm)]

This completes the update. It's an easy update!

If you were unable to install Appium with just this command, uninstall Appium 1.x. However, npm's uninstall command alone may not completely remove it; make sure that Appium in node_module is completely removed before installing Appium 2.0 again.

Building WebDriverAgent

When running iOS app tests, a certificate must be set up. Once you build WebDriverAgent and if it succeeds, the app test will work reliably, so build it manually.

** Another way is to run the command. However, there were several times when it did not work, so I will describe how to build it manually.

Open WebDriverAgent.xcodeproj in Xcode

In my case, I installed Node with nodebrew, so the xcode project was saved in the following path.

/Users/(username)/.nodebrew/node/v16.15.1/lib/node_modules/appium-flutter-driver/node_modules/appium-xcuitest-driver/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent/WebDriverAgent.xcodeproj

Appium’s website shows it as $APPIUM_HOME/node_modules/appium-xcuitest-driver/node_modules/appium-webdriveragent.I have not set $APPIUM_HOME in the environment variables myself. But $APPIUM_HOME was somehow recognized as /Users/(username)/.nodebrew/node/v16.15.1/lib/node_modules/appium-flutter-driver/.

If you did not find WebDriverAgent.xcodeproj in the location you expected, it may be in an unexpected location, so please look for it.

Select the Team you want to use under Team in Signing & Capabilities in Xcode

Select it for all objects in TARGETS to avoid rework.

Connect and build your iPhone.

Developer mode on the iPhone must be turned on beforehand.

Find out the bundleID of the app

Find out the bundleID of the app you want to test. There are two ways to find out the bundleID: use (1) if the app was installed from the Apple Store, otherwise use (2).

Method 1

Search for the app you want to get the bundleID from App Store.
Note down the id part of the URL.
Open the following URL. https://itunes.apple.com/lookup?id=[noted down id]

a text file wil be downloaded.

Find the bundleID in the downloaded file.

Method 2

Connect iPhone to PC.
Launch "Console," a utility that is installed as standard on the Mac.
Launch the application you want to get the bundleID for on the iPhone.
Get bundleID from console.

It is easier to find them by searching for the name of the application, for example.

Prepare and execute source code

First, start Appium in a terminal.

$ appium server

Next, write and execute the source code. Here is the code we used this time.

The iOS Settings app will launch, click on Bluetooth, and the back operation should now work.

import io.appium.java_client.AppiumBy;
import io.appium.java_client.ios.IOSDriver;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.AfterEach;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeEach;
import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.time.Duration;

public class iOSAppSettings {
    private IOSDriver driver;

    @BeforeEach
    public void setUp() throws MalformedURLException {
        DesiredCapabilities desiredCapabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
        desiredCapabilities.setCapability("platformName", "app");
        desiredCapabilities.setCapability("appium:automationName", "XCUITest");
        desiredCapabilities.setCapability("appium:platformVersion", "16.3.1");
        desiredCapabilities.setCapability("appium:bundleId", "com.apple.Preferences");
        desiredCapabilities.setCapability("appium:noReset", true);
        desiredCapabilities.setCapability("appium:udid", "YourUDID");

        driver = new IOSDriver(new URL("http://0.0.0.0:4723/"), desiredCapabilities);
        driver.manage().timeouts().implicitlyWait(Duration.ofSeconds(5));

    }

    @Test
    public void TestIOSSettings() throws InterruptedException {
        driver.findElement(AppiumBy.xpath("//XCUIElementTypeStaticText[@name='Bluetooth']")).click();
        driver.findElement(AppiumBy.xpath("//XCUIElementTypeButton[@name='Settings']")).click();
    }

    @AfterEach
    public void tearDown() {
        driver.quit();
    }
}

Incidentally, you can find the source code required for launching in the Session Information tab of Appium Inspector's 2023.5.2.

You may want to use that source code after you have the app ready to launch in Appium Inspector.

Note, however, that the latest version of the library, java_client, does not support MobileElement.

java-client/v7-to-v8-migration-guide.md at master · appium/java-client

Java language binding for writing Appium Tests, conforms to W3C WebDriver Protocol - java-client/v7-to-v8-migration-guide.md at master · appium/java-client

github.com

java-client/v7-to-v8-migration-guide.md at master · appium/java-client

Conclusion

I described how to run iOS app tests with Appium 2.0. Although I did not touch on features unique to Appium 2.0, I hope you have found it easy to migrate from Appium 1.x to Appium 2.0.

Appium 1.x will not be updated much in the future, so it is recommended to migrate to Appium 2.0 when you have time!