Query regarding frequent performance issue(TIMEOUT ERRORS) while automating APPIAN application.

Question

Hi ,

I am using cucumber for Appian JAR for automating appian application. Usage of CucumbertempoFixture, CucumberSitesFixture etc are made for automation.

Recently imported new JAR for 19.4 version of appian due to which encountered with frequest timeoutExceptions,progressbarExceptions

Progress Bar remained for longer than timeout period, investigate performance and test timeout parameter

com.appiancorp.ps.automatedtest.exception.WaitForProgressBarTestException: message:<<Progress Bar remained for longer than timeout period, investigate performance and test timeout parameter.>>
at com.appiancorp.ps.automatedtest.exception.ExceptionBuilder.build(ExceptionBuilder.java:70)
at com.appiancorp.ps.automatedtest.tempo.interfaces.TempoButton.click(TempoButton.java:89)
at com.appiancorp.ps.automatedtest.fixture.TempoFixture.clickOnButton(TempoFixture.java:2175)
at com.appiancorp.ps.cucumber.fixtures.CucumberTempoFixture.clickOnButton(CucumberTempoFixture.java:677)
at com.bofa.AMP.steps.AMPSteps_EBOTS.I_update_education_row(AMPSteps_EBOTS.java:2071)
at ?.I update education row(C:/Users/ZK7GFPJ/Desktop/AMP/AMP360_19.4_EBOTS/src/test/resources/Associates_19.4_EBOTS.feature:139)

Please anyone help me to resolve this issue.

Regards,

Larsen Rodrigues

Dave Lewis · Answer

Please take what I say with a grain of salt, because I have essentially no experience with Cucumber, but this error appears to me to demonstrate that your forms are taking longer to load than you accounted for in your test script. 
 I would double the time your scripts are allowing for the next screen to load and see if you don't see a dramatic reduction or complete elimination of your issue. If that does happen, you have two possibilities: 
 1. You were at less than a second, or some other quite small number. You need to reset your expectations. 
 2. You did give a reasonable wait time of a couple of seconds, and you are facing performance issues. (This is especially likely if these alerts congregate around the same forms time after time) 
 You can also investigate performance issues by looking at the performance view of the forms the script is attempting to load when it times out. Also check the PMs to see if a background process or script task is taking all the time between forms. Ultimately, you want something reasonable as a wait time, and want the forms to load in that time. Go after the biggest bottlenecks first. 
 Doubling the cucumber wait time is only a temporary measure to instantly determine if forms loading slower than Cucumber wants IS the problem. You should drop the cucumber wait time back to original value if it is performance, so you'll be able to accurately test for performance improvement.