Develop Reference

Looking for a way to grab real-time console logs for a website I do not own

Here is what I have going on. I have a rPI that launches chrome into three tabs that I have set using xdotool to cycle between the three tabs. Everything is working great with that functionality, but I am looking to have it stop cycling and stay on one of the tabs when an event on that website happens. I have the code done to go back to that tab and stay there for x-amount of time. What I need help with is getting the code to recognize the event happening. I have watched the console when the event occurs and there is a log of the function call as well as the object that is passed from the JS code. If there is a way to monitor that console log real-time in the background and catch that function call being printed to the log then I could use that to fire the rest of the logic to lock the screen to that tab.
Or if anyone can come up with a different/easier plan that would be greatly appreciated. When the function call happens there is a list of names that displays on the website. Maybe we could check that list for any name and then lock the screen.
I tried to use selenium to grab the logs. I was able to get it to start chrome and then go to the website and pull up the logs. That worked as it was supposed to from the documentation that I have read. The problem is I need something to run on an already running instance of chrome. Maybe have it in the code that when it goes to the tab where the function would be called it would check the log and execute code, not launch and then close an instance of chrome.

If there is a way to monitor that console log real-time in the
background and catch that function call being printed to the log
There is (though not in the background). Here's how you can do it
function myConsoleLogFunc(info) {
// examine the info being logged
this.log(info);
}
myConsoleLogFunc.log = console.log;
console.log = myConsoleLogFunc;

So I was able to get the answer I was looking for with puppeteer and some navigation and bash scripts. Below is the code that I used to complete the task.
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');
async function start(){
const browser = await puppeteer.launch({executablePath: '/usr/bin/chromium-browser'}); //launch browser window in bg
const page = await browser.newPage(); //get new page in browser
await page.setViewport({width: 1280, height: 800}); //set window size
await page.goto('https://auth.iamresponding.com/login/member'); //open i am responding page
await page.click('#accept-policy'); //click accept cookies
await page.type('#Input_Agency', '#########'); //input agency name
await page.type('#Input_Username', '#########'); //input user name
await page.type('#Input_Password', '#########'); //input password
await Promise.all([page.click('button[name="Input.button"'), page.waitForNavigation()]) //click login button and wait for new page to load
var messageTest = "" // var to hold console message for testing
var testDone = false
var loaded = 0 // var to only fire code on first pushrespond notice
page.on('console', message => { //get the console logs from the browser and pass them to the test method
messageTest = message.text()
console.log(messageTest)
testDone = testValue(messageTest)
})
function testValue(cLog){ //method to test the console message for responding and clear responding
if (cLog.includes("pushrespond")) { //check to see if value is pushrespond
loaded += 1 // if it is increment the loaded var
if (loaded == 1){ // check if loaded = 1 and if so open new chrome window and execute login
require('child_process').exec('sh /home/pi/open.sh',
(error, stdout, stderr) => {
console.log(stdout);
console.log(stderr);
if (error !== null) {
console.log(`exec error: ${error}`);
}
});
return //return out of the method
}else {
return // if loaded is more than one return out of method without doing anything
}
return
}else if (cLog.includes("pushautoclear")){ //check to see if console message is push autoclear
if(loaded >= 1){ //make sure that there is a valid window to close out of as to not close main browser if no one was responding
require('child_process').exec('sh /home/pi/exit.sh', //close the window that was launched on responding
(error, stdout, stderr) => {
console.log(stdout);
console.log(stderr);
if (error !== null) {
console.log(`exec error: ${error}`);
}
});
loaded = 0 //reset loaded to 0 so all functions work properly on next iteration
}else{
return
}
return
}else{ //exit out of the method if message does not contain pushrespond or pushautoclear
return
}
}
}

Outlook AddIn GetAsync successful but returns nothing

I've got an Outlook Add In that was developed using the Office Javascript API.
It looks at the new email being composed & does things based on who it's going to: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/reference/objectmodel/requirement-set-1.3/office.context.mailbox.item
The code correctly returns the TO email when you 'select' the email from the suggested email list... screenshots shown # bottom of this thread
To debug the Javascript, I use C:\Windows\SysWOW64\F12\IEChooser.exe
It was working fine until last week. Is it possible a Windows update broke functionality?
I'm the only person with access to the code. It hadn't been modified for months.
When debugger is running, getAsync correctly returns the 'TO' value. I needed to write the response to a global variable to prove the values were 'undefined' while not in debug.
var resultObjects;
var resultObjects2;
var strMessages = '';
var strTo = '';
var mailbox;
var mailitem;
(function () {
"use strict";
// The Office initialize function must be run each time a new page is loaded.
Office.initialize = function (reason) {
$(document).ready(function () {
mailbox = Office.context.mailbox;
mailitem = mailbox.item;
mailitem.to.getAsync(function (result) {
if (result.status === 'failed') {
strMessages = 'FAILED';
} else {
strMessages = 'SUCCESS';
strTo = result.value[0];
resultObjects = result;
resultObjects2 = result.value;
}
});
loadApp();
});
};
})();
Here are the values of the variables, when the app is loaded & debugger is not running
EDIT
If you 'select' the TO email so that it is bolded... the code works correctly. If you leave the typed-in-text field without selecting the suggested email, it does not work. The same behavior is true for both the Outlook Web Application (# https://outlook.office.com) and the desktop outlook application.
Does not work
Does Work

The Office.context.mailbox.item.to.getAsync API will only return resolved recipients. If the TO email address is not resolved (as in the first screenshot titled "Does not Work"), then API will not return the email address until it is resolved (in both desktop and OWA).
You can use the RecipientsChanged Event, to get newly resolved recipients after you have queried for to.getAsync. This event would fire when a recipient is newly resolved.

Re-using same instance again webdriverJS

I am really new to Selenium. I managed to open a website using the below nodejs code
var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver');
var driver = new webdriver.Builder()
.forBrowser('chrome')
.build();
console.log(driver);
driver.get('https://web.whatsapp.com');
//perform all other operations here.
https://web.whatsapp.com is opened and I manually scan a QR code and log in. Now I have different javascript files to perform actions like delete, clear chat inside web.whatsapp.com etc...
Now If I get some error, I debug and when I run the script again using node test.js, it takes another 2 minutes to load page and do the steps I needed. I just wanted to reopen the already opened tab and continue my script instead new window opens.
Edit day 2 : Still searching for solution. I tried below code to save object and reuse it.. Is this the correct approach ? I get a JSON parse error though.
var o = new chrome.Options();
o.addArguments("user-data-dir=/Users/vishnu/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome/Profile 2");
o.addArguments("disable-infobars");
o.addArguments("--no-first-run");
var driver = new webdriver.Builder().withCapabilities(webdriver.Capabilities.chrome()).setChromeOptions(o).build();
var savefile = fs.writeFile('data.json', JSON.stringify(util.inspect(driver)) , 'utf-8');
var parsedJSON = require('./data.json');
console.log(parsedJSON);

It took me some time and a couple of different approaches, but I managed to work up something I think solves your problem and allows to develop tests in a rather nice way.
Because it does not directly answer the question of how to re-use a browser session in Selenium (using their JavaScript API), I will first present my proposed solution and then briefly discuss the other approaches I tried. It may give someone else an idea and help them to solve this problem in a nicer/better way. Who knows. At least my attempts will be documented.
Proposed solution (tested and works)
Because I did not manage to actually reuse a browser session (see below), I figured I could try something else. The approach will be the following.
Idea
Have a main loop in one file (say init.js) and tests in a separate file (test.js).
The main loop opens a browser instance and keeps it open. It also exposes some sort of CLI that allows one to run tests (from test.js), inspect errors as they occur and to close the browser instance and stop the main loop.
The test in test.js exports a test function that is being executed by the main loop. It is passed a driver instance to work with. Any errors that occur here are being caught by the main loop.
Because the browser instance is opened only once, we have to do the manual process of authenticating with WhatsApp (scanning a QR code) only once. After that, running a test will reload web.whatsapp.com, but it will have remembered that we authenticated and thus immediately be able to run whatever tests we define in test.js.
In order to keep the main loop alive, it is vital that we catch each and every error that might occur in our tests. I unfortunately had to resort to uncaughtException for that.
Implementation
This is the implementation of the above idea I came up with. It is possible to make this much fancier if you would want to do so. I went for simplicity here (hope I managed).
init.js
This is the main loop from the above idea.
var webdriver = require('selenium-webdriver'),
by = webdriver.By,
until = webdriver.until,
driver = null,
prompt = '> ',
testPath = 'test.js',
lastError = null;
function initDriver() {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
// already opened a browser? done
if (driver !== null) {
resolve();
return;
}
// open a new browser, let user scan QR code
driver = new webdriver.Builder().forBrowser('chrome').build();
driver.get('https://web.whatsapp.com');
process.stdout.write("Please scan the QR code within 30 seconds...\n");
driver.wait(until.elementLocated(by.className('chat')), 30000)
.then(() => resolve())
.catch((timeout) => {
process.stdout.write("\b\bTimed out waiting for code to" +
" be scanned.\n");
driver.quit();
reject();
});
});
}
function recordError(err) {
process.stderr.write(err.name + ': ' + err.message + "\n");
lastError = err;
// let user know that test failed
process.stdout.write("Test failed!\n");
// indicate we are ready to read the next command
process.stdout.write(prompt);
}
process.stdout.write(prompt);
process.stdin.setEncoding('utf8');
process.stdin.on('readable', () => {
var chunk = process.stdin.read();
if (chunk === null) {
// happens on initialization, ignore
return;
}
// do various different things for different commands
var line = chunk.trim(),
cmds = line.split(/\s+/);
switch (cmds[0]) {
case 'error':
// print last error, when applicable
if (lastError !== null) {
console.log(lastError);
}
// indicate we are ready to read the next command
process.stdout.write(prompt);
break;
case 'run':
// open a browser if we didn't yet, execute tests
initDriver().then(() => {
// carefully load test code, report SyntaxError when applicable
var file = (cmds.length === 1 ? testPath : cmds[1] + '.js');
try {
var test = require('./' + file);
} catch (err) {
recordError(err);
return;
} finally {
// force node to read the test code again when we
// require it in the future
delete require.cache[__dirname + '/' + file];
}
// carefully execute tests, report errors when applicable
test.execute(driver, by, until)
.then(() => {
// indicate we are ready to read the next command
process.stdout.write(prompt);
})
.catch(recordError);
}).catch(() => process.stdin.destroy());
break;
case 'quit':
// close browser if it was opened and stop this process
if (driver !== null) {
driver.quit();
}
process.stdin.destroy();
return;
}
});
// some errors somehow still escape all catches we have...
process.on('uncaughtException', recordError);
test.js
This is the test from the above idea. I wrote some things just to test the main loop and some WebDriver functionality. Pretty much anything is possible here. I have used promises to make test execution work nicely with the main loop.
var driver, by, until,
timeout = 5000;
function waitAndClickElement(selector, index = 0) {
driver.wait(until.elementLocated(by.css(selector)), timeout)
.then(() => {
driver.findElements(by.css(selector)).then((els) => {
var element = els[index];
driver.wait(until.elementIsVisible(element), timeout);
element.click();
});
});
}
exports.execute = function(d, b, u) {
// make globally accessible for ease of use
driver = d;
by = b;
until = u;
// actual test as a promise
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
// open site
driver.get('https://web.whatsapp.com');
// make sure it loads fine
driver.wait(until.elementLocated(by.className('chat')), timeout);
driver.wait(until.elementIsVisible(
driver.findElement(by.className('chat'))), timeout);
// open menu
waitAndClickElement('.icon.icon-menu');
// click profile link
waitAndClickElement('.menu-shortcut', 1);
// give profile time to animate
// this prevents an error from occurring when we try to click the close
// button while it is still being animated (workaround/hack!)
driver.sleep(500);
// close profile
waitAndClickElement('.btn-close-drawer');
driver.sleep(500); // same for hiding profile
// click some chat
waitAndClickElement('.chat', 3);
// let main script know we are done successfully
// we do so after all other webdriver promise have resolved by creating
// another webdriver promise and hooking into its resolve
driver.wait(until.elementLocated(by.className('chat')), timeout)
.then(() => resolve());
});
};
Example output
Here is some example output. The first invocation of run test will open up an instance of Chrome. Other invocations will use that same instance. When an error occurs, it can be inspected as shown. Executing quit will close the browser instance and quit the main loop.
$ node init.js
> run test
> run test
WebDriverError: unknown error: Element <div class="chat">...</div> is not clickable at point (163, 432). Other element would receive the click: <div dir="auto" contenteditable="false" class="input input-text">...</div>
(Session info: chrome=57.0.2987.133)
(Driver info: chromedriver=2.29.461571 (8a88bbe0775e2a23afda0ceaf2ef7ee74e822cc5),platform=Linux 4.9.0-2-amd64 x86_64)
Test failed!
> error
<prints complete stacktrace>
> run test
> quit
You can run tests in other files by simply calling them. Say you have a file test-foo.js, then execute run test-foo in the above prompt to run it. All tests will share the same Chrome instance.
Failed attempt #1: saving and restoring storage
When inspecting the page using my development tools, I noticed that it appears to use the localStorage. It is possible to export this as JSON and write it to a file. On a next invocation, this file can be read, parsed and written to the new browser instance storage before reloading the page.
Unfortunately, WhatsApp still required me to scan the QR code. I have tried to figure out what I missed (cookies, sessionStorage, ...), but did not manage. It is possible that WhatsApp registers the browser as being disconnected after some time has passed. Or that it uses other browser properties (session ID?) to recognize the browser. This is pure speculating from my side though.
Failed attempt #2: switching session/window
Every browser instance started via WebDriver has a session ID. This ID can be retrieved, so I figured it may be possible to start a session and then connect to it from the test cases, which would then be run from a separate file (you can see this is the predecessor of the final solution). Unfortunately, I have not been able to figure out a way to set the session ID. This may actually be a security concern, I am not sure. People more expert in the usage of WebDriver might be able to clarify here.
I did find out that it is possible to retrieve a list of window handles and switch between them. Unfortunately, windows are only shared within a single session and not across sessions.

Displaying running console program data outputs in my to my visual studio application page

How can I show on my visual studio application page, a running program data outputs in console.

Okay based on your comment i think you want to execute a console program and redirect it´s output to your visual studio output Window?
The following example is in C#
var processStartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo()
{
FileName = "cmd.exe",
Arguments = "/c ping www.google.de",
WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden, //to hide the cmd window
RedirectStandardOutput = true, //needed to redirect the output
UseShellExecute = false
};
var process = new Process()
{
StartInfo = processStartInfo
};
if (process.Start())
{
while (!process.StandardOutput.EndOfStream)
{
var outputLine = process.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
if(outputLine != null)
Debug.WriteLine(outputLine);
}
}
Not that there is also the possibility to use events for that using
process.OutputDataReceived += process_OutputDataReceived; but this event is only raised when a full line is printed to stdout. If the application is writing to a buffer and not calling Console.Out.Flush(); explicitly. The Ping example won´t work using the event method, so i choosed the synchronous read.
If you wan´t to know more about the event driven way, take a look here MSDN

Error handling "Out of Memory Exception" in browser?

I am debugging a javascript/html5 web app that uses a lot of memory. Occasionally I get an error message in the console window saying
"uncaught exception: out of memory".
Is there a way for me to gracefully handle this error inside the app?
Ultimately I need to re-write parts of this to prevent this from happening in the first place.

You should calclulate size of your localStorage,
window.localStorage is full
as a solution is to try to add something
var localStorageSpace = function(){
var allStrings = '';
for(var key in window.localStorage){
if(window.localStorage.hasOwnProperty(key)){
allStrings += window.localStorage[key];
}
}
return allStrings ? 3 + ((allStrings.length*16)/(8*1024)) + ' KB' : 'Empty (0 KB)';
};
var storageIsFull = function () {
var size = localStorageSpace(); // old size
// try to add data
var er;
try {
window.localStorage.setItem("test-size", "1");
} catch(er) {}
// check if data added
var isFull = (size === localStorageSpace());
window.localStorage.removeItem("test-size");
return isFull;
}

I also got the same error message recently when working on a project having lots of JS and sending Json, but the solution which I found was to update input type="submit" attribute to input type="button". I know there are limitations of using input type="button"..> and the solution looks weird, but if your application has ajax with JS,Json data, you can give it a try. Thanks.

Faced the same problem in Firefox then later I came to know I was trying to reload a HTML page even before setting up some data into local-storage inside if loop. So you need to take care of that one and also check somewhere ID is repeating or not.
But same thing was working great in Chrome. Maybe Chrome is more Intelligent.