Overcoming Challenges in Cross-Browser Automation Testing

Software application developers put their applications through a series of tests using specialized tools and well-defined scripts to test the various parameters of their products’ efficiency, reliability, and consistency. Automation testing is a process that automates any recursive and time-consuming manual testing task. Cross-browser testing is a process that checks the compatibility, functionality, and appearance of a web application on different browsers.

There are a handful of challenges during cross-browser automation testing, and it is essential to overcome them to make the application adhere to industry standards, maintain the brand’s reputation, and, most importantly, satisfy the user’s needs by providing a great, consistent application.

In this article, you will come to terms with cross-browser automation testing, its importance, and ways to overcome the challenges it throws.

Here are some insights on cross-browser testing, automation testing, and their interplay as cross-browser automation testing.

• Cross-browser testing: As was previously mentioned, cross-browser testing is a kind of software testing that concentrates on characteristics such as an online application’s functionality, consistency, dependability, look, and compatibility across various web browsers. It focuses on resolving the disparities caused by the differences in how browsers implement and interpret a web application due to their varying rendering methods of web standards and front-end codes.
• Automation testing: There are automatic systems everywhere. How about software testing as well? Indeed, automating any manual, repetitive testing process is what is meant by automated testing. Utilizing well-defined automation test scripts enhances the efficacy and scope of the testing procedure in automation testing.

So, it can be said that cross-browser automation testing simply means automating the cross-browser testing process. Let’s now dive into the challenges in this field and the ways to overcome them.

Here is a brief on the challenges the automation testing technique posted and their respective remedies.

Choosing the wrong automation tool

Setting up the wrong automation tool or the tool that doesn’t meet your requirements can be a nightmare. The upfront cost to own the service of any automation tool is considerably substantial, and proper research must be done before purchasing it. The right automation tool could accommodate any updates in any browser version, works well with majorly common browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari,  can scrape images (screenshots) with video recording, and can create test scripts relevant to the technical changes it encounters.

Highly dynamic content of web applications

Sometimes, some web applications come up with highly dynamic content that restricts the automation tools needed to sync the testing scripts with the current state of the application. This can be handled by setting delay functions, giving the tool sufficient time to recognize the elements and start its job.

Browser extensions and plugins

Any browser extension or plugin can cause asynchronous activity between the application and the script of the tool. To avoid this, disabling extensions or plugins that are not necessary is highly appreciated. If there are any potential plugins, then a script to handle them must be developed to ensure the proper functioning of the automation tool.

Testing on multiple browsers

The major challenge in cross-browser automation testing would be examining the application against multiple browsers and their vast versions. Each browser would possess a different functionality or the same rendering methods. Their approaches to interpreting and implementing front-end and back-end codes, linguistic Unicode, and other concepts will undoubtedly diverge. Automating the testing would be tedious if the testing scripts were not well-defined. To prevent any chaos, first know your users and plan your application testing only for the browsers they prefer or the most common ones, such as Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari. However, the version would change from user to user. So, a tester can go with a testing tool to resolve such compatibility discrepancies.

Differing browser versions

The test scripts used in the automated testing process might be greatly impacted by the regular updates browsers receive. The testers must stay awake to the release schedules and release channels of the major browsers or of the browsers their users mostly prefer. Some browser updates may show up automatically on the user end, and the changes may cause backward compatibility that affects the working of the existing functionality too.

The update also includes changes in the user agent strings that alter the website’s ability to identify and present the content. The automation tool or their testing scripts must be able to encounter these changes as early as possible and work accordingly. Any delay or avoidance related to updates may frustrate the clients and cause their loss.

Exhausting number of resources

Automating cross-browser testing on different combinations of operating systems, devices, and browsers with varying versions may take much work. The business setups may find it too daunting to accomplish such test processes. The best remedy to such a problem is going for cloud-based services that bear the responsibility to test the application against versatile combinations, and cloud-based services are said to be cost-effective.

It is said that such services reduce the burden created if the testing is done in an in-house infrastructure. Cloud-based services are confined and come according to the budget of the businesses as there is no infrastructure set-up or maintenance cost, which makes it a go-to service. One such cloud-based tool to perform cross-browser testing at scale is LambdaTest.

LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform to run manual and automated tests at scale. The platform allows you to perform both real-time and automation testing across 3000+ environments and real mobile devices.

LambdaTest is a comprehensive solution for cross-browser testing, addressing the complexities of ensuring seamless performance across diverse web browsers. The platform offers a range of features that facilitate efficient cross-browser testing, contributing to improved web application compatibility and user experience.

It provides access to various browsers, including popular choices like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer, along with multiple versions. Additionally, users can test on various operating systems, ensuring thorough coverage across different browser-OS combinations. This expansive coverage allows testers to identify and rectify browser-specific issues early in the development lifecycle.

Problems in parallelism

As discussed earlier, cross-browser testing involves testing the web application against many combinations, which is a prolonged, time-consuming, and tedious task. Automating the testing process can be a great relief. However, there are challenges here too. When multiple tests need access to the same data, it causes problems. So, the dependencies between the tests must be nil when they are run in parallel. The infrastructure of the automation tool must be taken into account, and the limits in the parallelization of the test must be defined according to it. If not, it may lead to test failures and ineffective results.

Sometimes, the output of one test is the input of the other. If the former tests fail or give out any error, that bug must be eradicated, and the latter must be started. The test scripts must be defined to adjust to such situations and environments.

Ignorance of real-time conditions

For effective testing, considering real-time scenarios is highly necessary.  Using real devices against emulators is still a topic that has been discussed. However, businesses have started preferring real device clouds for testing their application that offers real-time scenarios and reliable testing results. The emulators mimic the real devices, and sometimes, when their parameters are wrongly set, it may lead to an inaccurate test result.

Budgetary issue

As mentioned earlier, the upfront costs of buying an automation tool are considerably substantial. It involves configuration management costs, license costs, installation costs, operational costs, and so on. Implementing this testing tool usually costs a lot and may cause budgetary issues in-house.

Browsers develop strict legal policies, like same-origin policies, that do not apply to the elements in the different domains. This is one of the major challenges in automation testing. The test script developers must remember the different legal policies of cross-domains before they draw a test script. Such situations can be faced when cross-origin resource sharing(CORS), a mechanism to pave the way for interaction between applications and domains different from where the applications were loaded previously, is possible.

Challenges faced by the testers

• Threads in script development tools often come with a learning curve. The testers or test engineers may take some time studying the functionalities and learning curves of the tool. This may lead to potential errors in test scripts created by the testers due to their unfamiliarity with the tool. Designing test scripts requires great research, analysis, and requirements evaluation. Poorly designed scripts might result in an inability to understand, maintain, and debug them.
• Lack of frequent updation- The test engineers must be aware of the frequent updates in the browsers and their versions and amend their test scripts accordingly. If not, the tool may fail to give reliable test results.
• Data inaccuracy- The data must be maintained consistently with integrity. When tests are run on outdated data, the result may include inaccurate positives and negatives that are not true.
• Adhering to application changes– When any change is made, the same must be reflected in the test scripts too. The testers must be aware of the changes and update their test scripts.
• External conditions- The testing also depends on external conditions like networking and system loads. They are non-deterministic conditions. However, they can cause inaccurate test results.
• Errors in the code- Errors in CSS/HTML codes, incorrect DOCTYPE, and issues in JavaScript can be major threats to automated testing. Any lack of valid front-end codes may throw a bug. So, before an application is tested, the codes must be checked with code validators. Though invalid codes may run on Chrome and Firefox, the same is not expected in the case of other browsers too.

Cross-browser testing is a technique that can never be neglected while testing a software application. Automating it is a great idea unless it does not throw any major challenges that might destroy the whole testing process. Though there are mighty challenges in cross-browser automated testing, they can be overcome effectively by addressing them immediately and implementing relevant strategies to produce an effective testing result.

Some of the major challenges and threats were discussed in this article, along with the solutions that could solve the disparities caused by the challenges. Hope the article answered your queries on this topic and cleared your doubts