Preparing Chrome for Web Testing

TestComplete requires that JavaScript execution be enabled in Chrome in order to identify web page elements. To enable JavaScript in Chrome, do the following:

• Navigate to chrome://settings/content.

• In the JavaScript section, select Allow all sites to run JavaScript.

If your tested web application uses HTML pop-ups, you need to disable Chrome’s pop-up blocker. To do that:

• In the Pop-ups section, select Allow all sites to show pop-ups.

Alternatively, if you prefer to have the pop-up blocker enabled, you can add your tested web application to the exceptions list. To do that, click Manage exceptions and use the subsequent Pop-up Exceptions page.

New versions of Chrome are released frequently. If the browser’s auto-update feature is enabled, it can automatically upgrade Chrome to a version that is not yet supported by TestComplete.

To avoid this, we recommended that you disable the browser’s auto-update feature on the test machine and install the latest Chrome version that is supported by your version of TestComplete manually.

To disable the auto-update feature, do any of the following:

• Use the Google Update ADM template as described on the Google Update for Enterprise web page and set the Administrative Templates | Google | Google Update | Applications | Google Chrome | Update policy override property to "Manual updates only" or to "Updates disabled".

• Locate or create the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\UpdateDefault registry value (REG_DWORD) and set it to "0".

• Remove or rename the <Program Files>\Google\Update folder.

To learn which Chrome versions are supported by TestComplete, go to the Google Chrome Patches page.

The ThirdPartyBlockingEnabled security policy of Google Chrome prevents injecting third-party modules into Chrome processes. Starting from Chrome version 69, the policy is enabled by default. This may prevent TestComplete from recording and simulating user actions on the Open File and Save File dialogs invoked from Chrome.

To avoid possible issues, we recommend that you disable the policy:

1. On your computer, open the Registry editor. To do this, click the Start or Windows button, click Run, type regedit, and press Enter.

2. In the Registry editor, locate the following key:

   Software\Policies\Google\Chrome

   If this key does not exist, create it.

3. Make sure the ThirdPartyBlockingEnabled value of the key is set to false (0).

   If the value does not exist, create the DWORD value ThirdPartyBlockingEnabled and set it to 0.

If your Google Chrome browser settings are managed via group policies, ask your system administrator to update the policies to disable the ThirdPartyBlockingEnabled policy.

To learn more about policies, see chromium.org/administrators/policy-list-3.

Some extensions may cause unexpected behavior of the browser, or even modify network traffic, which does not allow you to perform automated web testing. So, we recommended that you disable all third-party extensions except for SmartBear Test Extension and the extensions required for testing.

To disable extensions:

• From the Chrome menu, select Settings and then select Extensions on the left.

• Clear the Enabled check box next to the extensions you do not need.

For detailed instructions, see http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=187443.

If you use several accounts in Chrome, do one of the following:

• Log out of all accounts except for the one you will use for testing.

— or —

• Disable the SmartBear Test Extension for all accounts except for the one you will use for testing.

We also recommend that you configure certain Google Chrome settings as described below. While these settings are not necessarily required for automated testing, using them will prevent unexpected browser behavior and improve Chrome’s performance during test recording and test runs.

• From Chrome’s main menu, select Settings.

  – or –

  Navigate to the chrome://settings page.

• On the Basics page:

  • Set On startup to Open the home page.

  • In Home page, select Open this page: and enter about:blank.

  Using a blank home page will prevent capturing of superfluous web pages during test recording and improves the browser startup performance.

• On the Personal Stuff page:

  • Set the Passwords option to Never save passwords.

  • Uncheck Enable Autofill to fill out web forms in a single click.

  This will prevent unexpected behavior when filling forms during test recording and test runs.