The playback failed to find the control with the given search properties

Question

Hi,

I'm a MTM newby. I'm trying to record/playback a manual test, but I'm always getting the same error (see Exception).
The error occurs when the playback is trying to navigate in a table UI component. 
In the record phase I select an entry in the table that is not the default value, but in the playback it does not select the item and times-out with the exception.

Exception:

The playback failed to find the control with the given search properties.

Additional Details: TechnologyName: 'MSAA' ControlName: '4253#42e7a261-bc35-4db1-964f-64b98c3ff1af'

ControlType: 'Window' Instance: '2'

Failed action:

Click 'BRUYNDONCXX DANIEL' cell

Primary search properties:Property Value

ControlName 4253#42e7a261-bc35-4db1-964f-64b98c3ff1af

ControlType Window

Instance 2

Tx.

Answer 1

Hi jarumski,

Thank you for your post.

According to your description of the issue, it seems MTM cannot find some object. May be MTM do not record the whole test actions. Here are some situations i want to clarify from you: When or where you start to record the test?
If open the table first or there is a table already there, then start to record the test actions, MTM has already miss the first launch step. During the platback, MTM won't search any comtrol properly.

Please try to start test from the very beginning, this is to ensure MTM record the whole actions, and during play back, MTM could search all the objects to reproduce the test steps.

I hope this information will help resolve this issue.

If anything is unclear, please free feel to let me know.

Best regards,

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Lily Wu [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Thanks for your reply.

To answer "When or where you start to record the test?". I start recording before the application under test is open.
I have a very simple test with 4 steps.
1- Open the App
2- Search an office (application opens a screen with a tabular view, listing number of entries)
3- Select in the tabular view an item (item is high lighted)
4- Close the App

Step 3 fails with the Exception "The playback failed to find the control with the given search properties"
I execute this test case with "Overwrite existing action recording". In every step during the recording a select pass/fail.
I run my manual test recording successfully.
To playback I select play or play all, it results in the same exception at step3.

I suppose the recording is collecting the information otherwise it would not record that ControlName '4253#42e7a261-bc35-4db1-964f-64b98c3ff1af'? Or is this an indication it put some bogus value (#42e7a261-bc35-4db1-964f-64b98c3ff1af) during recording? Is there a way to see what exactly was recorded, with controlname and stuff?

Tx, Jan.

Answer 3

Hi Jarumski,

For the error, the control "ControlName 4253#42e7a261-bc35-4db1-964f-64b98c3ff1af" cannot be recognized well.  What kind of table UI component you are using?  Are you using Microsoft control or third party control?

Can you follow to the next article to enable verbose trace?

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/gautamg/archive/2009/11/29/how-to-enable-tracing-for-ui-test-components.aspx

Thanks!

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Sophia Lu [MSFT]