mabl provides a wealth of information related to browser test output to help you triage and diagnose issues. While a browser test is running in the cloud, you can watch it play back live on the test output page.
- If the test passes, it gains a "passed" status.
- If a step fails during playback, mabl automatically selects the step and shows details about that step in the panel on the right.
Live playback of a cloud run
This guide provides an overview of the information you can obtain from a cloud run of a browser test.
Page header
The page header of the browser test output page shows important high-level information, such as the browser, environment, and plan.
Compare runs
For tests that have been run multiple times or across multiple browsers, you can switch between those run versions with the Browser and Time of run dropdowns.
Switching between different browser test runs
PDF export
Click on More actions (...) > Export PDF to download a PDF summary of the test run.
Exporting a PDF summary
The PDF contains:
- A metadata summary with at-a-glance information on the run.
- An image representing the final application state.
- Detailed step-by-step logs grouped like the logs in the test output page.
For a test in progress, clicking the Download PDF button will take a snapshot of the current data. If the test progresses further, you can click again to take a new snapshot of the updated state.
The output of those tests is large and not easily consumed as a PDF. You can export those results in a CSV format instead for easier consumption.
Step timeline
Use the step timeline to view the relative time it took for each step to complete.
- Hover over the step to see how much time a specific step took.
- Click on the step in the timeline to view more details about the step output.
Hovering over a step in the step timeline
The step timeline can be useful in the following situations:
- Identifying unnecessary waits: with mabl's Intelligent Wait built in to every step, it's often not necessary to add waits to the majority of a test. Waits can also slow down tests considerably by adding a static amount of time to a run. Use the step timeline to identify waits that may be far longer than what is necessary.
- Identifying slow running steps: click on steps that ran slower than others to investigate the logs. Sometimes these slow running steps are associated with an issue or change that took place during testing, such as a network error or an auto-heal.
- Identifying slow running sections of the app under test: if you see a group of steps in the step timeline that are running slower than usual, check the URL or section of your app that the group of slow steps are testing to determine what may have contributed to the slowdown. Take advantage of the speed index as well as any network errors detected for that step, depending on your mabl subscription.
Step details
Step details on the left indicate what action each step performed, whether it passed, failed, or passed with a warning, and how long it took to execute.
Steps may be filtered by type. See our guide on filtering steps in test output for more information.
Screenshots
Screenshots show the state of the UI before mabl executed a given step.
Visual changes
If the test runs in a plan, you can compare screenshots to previous runs. See visual change detection for browser tests for more details.
Comparing the current screenshot to a baseline
Logs
Logs provide more granular detail on the activity during each step and are helpful for troubleshooting failed tests.
To download test step logs, see our guide downloading test data.
mabl activity
The "mabl activity" tab logs mabl's interactions with the application.
- Click on Time display to toggle between earth time and test time.
- Click on Element history to review tracked attributes for steps that interact with an element on the page. See reviewing element history for more details.
Reviewing mabl activity in the logs
Network
The "Network" tab shows what network calls were made while executing the current step. This data is useful when trying to debug network errors that occur during test runs.
DOM
DOM stands for Document Object Model, and it is the programming interface for HTML. The contents of the "DOM" tab represent the webpage as a node tree and help identify what elements existed on the page during the step execution.
Performance
The "Performance" tab measures how users are to perceive the performance or the load speed of your application UI. See the guide on speed index for more details.
Variables
If the step used variables, the "Variables" tab shows which were used in the step and their values.
Console logs
If any messages are logged in the Console during Chrome runs, they appear in the "Console logs" tab.
Accessibility
Detailed output from accessibility checks appears in the "Accessibility" tab.