Overview
Occasionally, certain test automation steps, such as Click, Select, and Verify actions, may take longer to execute than the standard expected time. This document explains why these delays can occur and what can be done to address them.
How It Works
The primary cause for slow step execution is the complexity of the web page under test. Pages with a very large Document Object Model (DOM), containing thousands of elements, require more processing time for the automation engine to locate and interact with the target element. This can lead to execution times for individual steps exceeding 10 seconds, even without any explicit wait steps.
When encountering steps that are consistently slow, our support team can apply internal optimizations, sometimes referred to as an 'element minor' fix. This process helps refine the element selector, leading to faster identification and a reduction in execution time for the affected steps.
Limitations
While optimizations can significantly improve performance, it is expected behavior for steps on highly complex pages (for example, pages with over 15,000 elements) to take longer than average. In such cases, an execution time of 10-12 seconds may be the optimal performance achievable due to the sheer size of the page's DOM.
Related Information
If you are experiencing consistently slow steps that are impacting your test runs, please contact the support team. Provide details of the test case and the specific steps that are exceeding the expected execution time for further analysis and potential optimization.