[BUG] Missing lines? We have free extra lines!

This time, a very simple and stupid bug.

Every once in while, when you save your test, QTP gently adds blank lines at the bottom of the current action code. For no reason (well, maybe to troll you - who knows?).

Workaround: manually delete these lines.

[BUG] Yet another missing feature between QTP 10 and 11

Here we go again. Same blah-blah-blah as before. Seems like no one tests the testing tool, except the users.

This time, working with Flex objects, I figured out that QTP 11 and Flex add-in 4.0.0 can't handle bitmap checkpoints. When capturing the mentioned checkpoint, you get a "Unspecified error". Can you believe it? No? So check this out:

Moreover, if you run a bitmap checkpoint of a test previously recorded on QTP 10 (where these things actually work), QTP 11 displays an "Object not visible" error.

Sorry, no screenshots this time.

Could it be more frustrating?

[BUG] Function Browser().FullScreen() is not working in QTP 11

Simply put. Function Browser().FullScreen() is not working in QTP 11.

Every time I try the FullScreen() command, I get a "General run error". As if a "General" would have "errors" during his daily "runs". #worst_joke_ever

Nothing else to say.

[BUG] When did an error is actually expeted? (UPDATED!)

Honestly, no errors should be expected in any application, right? Everything should work flawlessly. But in the real world this is not what happens.

Not even with QTP.

Yesterday, I tried to check out an Object Repository (aka OR) from Quality Center which was not checked out to any one, when I came across something unexpected.

Let's be honest. What good does an error message like these ones do? No answer is required.

Well, let me tell you that I tried several different approaches to fix this problem, all in vain. Closed QTP up and restarted it. Didn't work. Closed all programs, restarted my computer. Didn't work.

Turns out that my coworker edited the same OR few minutes before me, and did the check out/check in normally. After the fact, I tried to check it out on my PC and ended up with these error messages.

Solution: **apparently** what happened is that my coworker's QTP silently crashed after editing the OR and didn't freed it up correctly. When closing his QTP down, it displayed a memory leak problem which as probably the main problem.

After making sure his QTP was a 100% dead on his PC, the OR was MAGICALLY available for checkouts as expected.

#facepalm.


UPDATE: a new message (or not) was reported by my coworker, on QTP 11. I swear, this is NOT fake!

[BUG] QTP 10 to 11 migration issues

Yeah folks... moving from QTP 10..0 to 11.0 is not as smooth and seamless as it's supposed to (well, at least HP didn't alarmed it would be).

We have to "test the testing tool" (which answers back my first post - yes, the answer is "us, the users") and make sure that, at least, the basic functionalities we had in the past are still in place (yes, regression test applies for QTP too).

And we found a few features to be out of place. Obviously, unfortunately. After all, it's QTP for someone's sake.

The migration issue example for this post refers to the Datatable, which does not allows you to edit the column titles from QTP 10.0 tests. We opened our tests up, check them out from Quality Center, double clicked the column titles and... nothing happens! Frustrating.

- Why's that? - you ask.
- Who knows! It's QTP! - I answer back.

Workaround: very quick way to fix this is by exporting and re-importing the excel shit sheet into your test.

1. Right click on the Datatable, choose File --> Export... and then Yes button.
2. Save wherever you want in your PC, edit it if required (but don't mess it up!), save, close.
3. Now, go back to QTP and right click the Datatable, choose File --> Import From File and choose the file you saved previously.
4. Click OK on whatever message QTP shows you.

Done. The Datatable column names are editable again. Duh.

[BUG] You can't edit your test because it's been checked out by... YOU." WHAT?!?!?

Wait a second, I can't edit my own test that has been checked out by me in QTP?? What the fuck heck?

Yes my friends, that's the ugly truth.

QTP has a VERY inconvenient bug which makes a test checked out on HP Quality Center by you, to be blocked for editing from you. Get it? You can't edit your own test. Crazy! You should ALWAYS be able to edit the test you checked out, unless you open it on a different computer, during a check out.

This annoying error happens every time you check any of your tests out from Quality Center. In the middle of your hard work, QTP awfully crashes, closes and leaves you with no other option but to redo all the work you've done up to the last Ctrl+S you typed.

And this is not the only problem. QTP won't let you edit your own test for the next 10~15 minutes time frame. Can you believe it?

Wait a sec, QTP crashed for no reason and I am the one who gets punished? Fuck! Not fair!

Workarounds: there are two major workarounds applied to this issue.

1. Wait for a 10~15minutes timeout from QC or QTP (I couldn't identify which one), and then re-open your test as nothing had happened. QTP will not tell your test is locked by you anymore.
2. But if you have no time to waste, then create a copy of your test in QC using the Save As option, renaming your test to a different name. The major drawback of this approach is that you lose all the versions history and all the results in Quality Center, as it will consider this as a new test, not the same one you had.

Hint: save your test every so often. And I'm talking about every 1 minute, max. Trust me, you won't regret it.

First things first...

I would like to start this blog with a very simple question: who tests the testing tool? This question sounds just like the "who came first, the chicken or the egg?" question. If you are like me and work in Information Technology (IT) area, you know that all types of software require extensive testing, sometimes requiring the aid of a testing tool to help you test faster and cover more and more testing scenarios. That's when QTP comes in hand.

Software testing has increasingly received more and more importance overtime in IT world, as the software development companies evolve their systems to godzila-size scales. And one of the questions that emerges from this long continuum development cycles is "does this new version/build/release maintain ALL the previous functionalities in place? haven't we brake something that was correctly work before?".

Here is where Regression Testing enters the scene. This type of test serves to help development teams (analysts, developers, testers included) to make sure that working features keep working as expected in the next to-be-released system versions, because the focus is to test already-in-place functions (not the new ones).

I personally work on one of these software development companies, particularly in software testing automation area, and I was hired mainly due to my previous 2 years experience working with QTP on a global technology company. Back at that time, I had the chance to work with versions 8.2 and 9.1. Now the challenge was to face QTP 10.0 and - since last week - 11.0 plus latest critical patches.

And for the past two years, I've been struggling with QTP. Seriously, everyday is like a battle against this tool. Bugs, crashes and lack of useful features mine this software's usability on a daily basis. So I thought "why not build a blog and post all the shit problems we face on the internet and let other people (aka automators) know and share their experiences? maybe - if I'm EXTREMELY lucky - HP will take the blame and fix these issues once and for all?" Sound like good reasons, right? Well, they do to me and here I am.

But, back to my main question, who tests the testing tool?

Sometimes I feel like no one gives a shit penny for this tool at HP and I will show why. Or probably, this is one of those projects no one ever dares to touch and prays to stay as far as possible from it. And that's what I will mainly cover in this blog - all the problems my team faces when using QTP with a good amount of humor. And to be fairly honest, I probably know more about QTP itself than any HP developer does.

Hope you enjoy reading it and have some fun, just like I do reporting these issues. :)
Feel free to leave your comments and - mainly - share your personal frustrations with this tool.