Always times out at 10 seconds regardless of setting - webdriver

Question

I am running a simple WebDriverIO script, and inserting any amount of async behaviour is making it time out at the 10 sec threshold (or before?). I want to control the timeout setting, but no matter what I try I cannot increase it.
As I am using ChromeDriver, not all Selenium settings are applicable, and setting browser.timeouts('implicit', 30000) (or script or pageLoad) will throw an error: unknown error: unknown type of timeout:pageLoad.
The only other timeouts I have found are
mochaOpts.timeout
waitforTimeout
This is my test:
it.only('should be able to register', ()=>{
// Mocha timeout
this.timeout(50000)
browser.url('/encounter/new');
browser.waitUntil( function() {
return browser.isExisting('[name=lastName]');
});
browser.setValue('#problem', 'something fishy');
// this is problematic: comment this out and everything works
// also works with very small timeouts
browser.executeAsync(function(done){
setTimeout(done, 1000);
});
browser.click('#appdetailsheader button');
console.log(browser.getUrl(), browser.log('browser'))
browser.waitUntil( function() {
return !browser.isExisting('[name=lastName]');
});
console.log(browser.getTitle(), browser.getUrl());
console.log(browser.log('browser'))
});

Answer 1

I can totally understand you frustration. WebdriverIO is extremely modular & configurable, but this comes with an increased level of complexity which often leads to confusion.
For this:
// Mocha timeout
this.timeout(50000);
!!! This has no effect because you are configuring/setting your Mocha timeout in an arrow function which is discouraged by Mocha. Read more about it here.
Solution (pick as applicable to your setup):
run your script with WebdriverIO test-runner and set mochaOpts: { timeout: <desiredTimeout>}, or you can even override it from your test run: wdio wdio.config.js --mochaOpts.timeout=<desiredTimeout>;
set your timeout in your root describe statement, or even better, in a before hook: before(function() { this.timeout(<desiredTimeout>); (...)});;
if you're running your test case using Mocha, pass the timeout either into your CLI command (if you're using it to run your tests): mocha yourTestFile.js --timeout <desiredTimeout>, or change it's value in your mocha.opts file;
Note: I'm sure there are even more ways to do this, but these are a few that worked for me.
For this:
browser.waitUntil( function() {
return browser.isExisting('[name=lastName]');
});
!!! This will always wait for the existence of the element with attribute name="lastName" for the default 1000 ms before timing out. This value can be changed via waitforTimeout.
Solution (pick as applicable to your setup):
explicitly give your waitUntil.../waitfor... commands the timeout: browser.waitUntil( function() { return browser.isExisting('[name=lastName]');}, <desiredTimeout>, <errorMessage>);;
run your script with WebdriverIO test-runner and set waitforTimeout: <desiredTimeout>, or you can even override it from your test run: wdio wdio.config.js --waitforTimeout=<desiredTimeout>;
Finally, I tried to run a few test cases with obscene timeout values (50000 ms) and it worked as expected for every one of the issues you mentioned above.
waitforTimeout example:
Logs (1 failing (57s)):
[chrome #0-0] ConnectWeb Devices Content Test Suite
[chrome #0-0] 1) "before all" hook
[chrome #0-0]
[chrome #0-0]
[chrome #0-0] 1 failing (57s)
[chrome #0-0]
[chrome #0-0] 1) ConnectWeb Devices Content Test Suite "before all" hook:
[chrome #0-0] Oups! An error occured.
Timed out waiting for element ('span[connectqa-device="events"]') to exist
Note: I've never used Selenium timeouts in WebdriverIO before (implicit, pageLoad, script), but I never had this necessity before as waitforTimeout & Mocha's timeout have been more than effective for my testing scenarios.
Small mention: This statement inserting any amount of async behaviour is making it time out at the 10 sec threshold is not true. First off, WDIO is completely asynchronous. You might be using the sync: true flag, but behind the scenes, everything is still async.
This is a vast topic and I tried to cover as much as possible given the information at hand. Sorry if I didn't completely answer your question. Tell me in the comments and I'll try to update the answer with the relevant info.
Hope it helps. Cheers!