New CubicTest and Firefox?

I love experimenting with new testing tools and CubicTest’s selenium plug in for eclipse has kept coming out in my readings lately. So this week, I decided to give CubicTest a try. I already use Selenium and I’ve been hopeful about Cubic Test adding value to that tool. I downloaded the program and wrote a simple test to export via Selenium – anxious to see if we could adapt our current tests to the new tool. It didn’t take long for the first glaring red error to occur- firefox wasn’t even launched.

As it turns out, this seems to be an issue for the latest release of CubicTest- as I discovered from their forums:

I’ve just installed Cubictest using the update site on my Mac OSx.

I’ve just created on simple test which launches a website. When I click run, I get the error message ‘firefox-bin quit unexpectedly’. I also get a subsequent error message about

‘Check that

– The browser is installed (if in non-default dir, set it in PATH)

– The initial URL is correct

– There are no background (non-visible) browser processes hanging’

After discovering my issue echoed on the forums, I set to work looking for fixes. I ran through the whole battery of debug options. I tried different browsers, changed PATH and directory and adjusted settings. It seems utterly unable to export selenium tests.

I also came across this fix, which finally shed more light on the issue -but even with the steps suggested here, the issue still appears.

The issue is mostly related to libsqlite3.dylib that resides on the Mac OSx.

When Firefox starts, it modifies the system’s DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH to point it to its own, this allows FF to run with the latest versions of all its libraries. However as you’ve seen in Eclispe, when Selenium starts up, it forces FF to use the system’s DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH (thus the system’s libraries), causing it the crash.

The solution is to prevent that and make Selenium/CubicTest plugin launch FF without the above. There are a couple of steps to get there:

1. Create a bash-script in your user directory. Call it firefox-bin (the same name as that used by firefox). This is not really necessary but it helps keep things tidy and neat.
2. Add the following content to the script file:
   • #!/bin/sh
   • /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin $@
   • exit $?
3. Next, edit eclipse.ini to use:
   • -DfirefoxDefaultPath=/Users/<username>/Scripts/firefox-bin
4. Restart Eclipse and try to run your test. It should launch FF fine. The first instance launched will not run the test (not sure why yet). AppleCMD+Q to quit. It will by itself launch a second instance after you’ve quit the first one, that instance would run your test / tests.

The program looks really interesting. Selenium has worked well on our project before- and extending it capibilities and maintainablility is an exciting prospect. I’ll keep checking back to see if this issue is resolved.

Has anyone else had luck with this program?

I may give it another try on a windows virtual box -but with less than exciting results so far, I may keep an eye on this issue to see if it is resolved first.